Stillness

Once a week I leave the city and take a walk in the countryside; it’s bliss! I walk down the sloping orchard, through the long wet grass that stretches between row upon row of stooping apple trees – packed now with small, tight apples, swelling agreeably with all this rain .. but sun not much…

The air is different here; it feels different, smells different; what is it? … It’s like the world of nature owns the air itself whereas in the town we do -  humans I mean …Yes, the distance grrrr of lorries and high speed trains  is still here - but the bees, the buttercups, the swallows and the wind all own the air.


What is it I breathe here, this country air? It is so different? I can only describe it as ‘stillness.’ ….


Stillness is what I crave for and yet don’t want, seek after but choose hurriedness instead … it’s so hard to stop …. put on the brakes ….

Yes, when I get there … I’m in tune with myself, my deep within, I feel in step with God again and sense others’ deeps too. I'm righted, no longer heeling sharply over, I’m sailing again …. phew ..


Learn it, my soul, learn it – stillness.