A little while back, I had an insight that nothing is any more real than any other thing. I wrote about it HERE.  After an experience the other day, I had a related thought—There might not be gradations of Real…but there Are different kinds of quiet.

There is the shallow quiet of desperation, of groping and grasping for something to say or of anticipating and waiting for something to be said.  This sort of quiet, in my experience, is wide, trepidatious, and sometimes sharp-edged.  Occasionally uncomfortable, ill-fitting both the space and the spirit.

There is also the quiet that buoys…deep salt water quiet that allows us to rest and to let go for a while. This quiet is also wide but with a depth of invitation to pull inward while being reassured of external safety.  There is the freedom to let go of vigilance and be borne on the tides…drawn out, drawn in, never too far and always back to shore.

And sometimes…sometimes there is a quiet that can not be sought.  A quiet that gathers and builds and cascades like a choir moving from a single voice to sections to the whole to layered harmonies…A quiet that holds galaxies of planets, each in their own orbit and also in a relationship of mutual balance and magnificent design, holding all that is birthed and all that lets go.  It’s extraordinary.  And I shared in it with a friend the other day.  

We had been having a considered, thoughtful, conversation of significance…the pace slowed on its own…and then gradually, a Quiet opened, welcomed, received.

Later on I described it this way in my journal…the sort of space that is The Good made manifest.  I felt as though my spirit extended beyond my being.  That there was a cushion of light and warmth holding me…light, warmth, and spirit holding us and the shared space…As though everything, from the tiniest of building block atoms to the complexity of breath, that exchange of life with green and leafing creation, to the wonder of the senses, the grandeur of the spirit… it was all in exquisite relationship for that while.

It’s also a profoundly grounding experience, no matter how ethereal it sounds. When I lose touch with my centre of gravity in the proprioceptive sense, I fall and have to find centre anew before I can once again stand and head onward.  So too in the mystical, spiritual sense…

Touching into the space revealed in that shared atmosphere of quiet felt to me like experiencing full body the concept of a centre of gravity.  All that was a part of that quiet is what keeps me upright in the wildness of Now.  That Holy Fullness is with me, within me, with others and within others…it moves with me as I move through a day, a week, a month… Encountering those whom I encounter and serving those whom I serve.

To have that sort of quiet organically envelop a space…to feel it so…’living-ly’…and then to share in it with someone I trust…whoa…That is absolutely grounding and steadying, incredible and gift.