The Most Damning Act...
Here we are living into June.
May you be well, or riled, or indignant, or joyful, or all, and more.
Let’s take a pause before I begin here.
A moment of silence for all the upheaval in the world.
However you do that.
Send a little love out from your heart.
And here is a quote I’ve been living into these past few months! Take a little time with it.
“In a culture that largely defines worthiness, sanity, and success in terms of how distant we are from our feelings, how far and fast we run away from our roots, how numb we are to the fluency of our bodies, daring to slow down…daring to be still is the most damning act of rebellion”---Bayo Akomolafe, These Wilds Beyond Our Fences
Stillness as a damning act of rebellion.
Does that rock your sense of the world a little, or at least give it a sway?
Does it activate you?
Does a YES rise? Or a no.
A hallelujah?
Does a sense of confusion or anger come up?
If you drop the words into your body, turn down your rational, institutionally educated mind and consider it, what then?
I have become curiouser and curiouser about stillness as service.
As an act of resistance to productivity, progress, success, and accomplishment.
The stories I have been indoctrinated with.
Amplified over my life----time.
Idle time, for me as a child, was a norm
Stillness.
Laid soft belly in the treed backyard
yearningly searching for the mysterious and magical four leaf clovers
that were one in a million
in oceans of green three leaf.
Stillness.
Lazily rolling over
dewy grass seeping
head tilted skyward
gazing relaxedly at enormous swarms
of puffy snow white cumulus clouds
shape-shifting into mythical creatures
floating their way over me.
Stillness.
Hands carefully, reverently tipping
rounded rocks up
to peek under
seeking glimpses of now curled
roly-poly bugs
in the pitch dark moist spaces beneath.
Stillness.
Burrowed under piles of cozy blankets
flashlight in hand.
Midnight reading.
Lines on pages blurring hazel eyes,
quietly still.
Words wandering the recesses
opening in the middle night,
wakeful lullabying.
And Rebellion. Ahhhhh.
Rebel-Lions---tigers and bears, oh my.
In describing stillness.
Rebellion.
I am enjoying the way it trips over my tongue.
The way it leans its head into the curve of my shoulder.
Resting itself for a spell.
There is a resonant truth running through my body that stillness can be these; rebellion, resistance, and service.
I’ve been doing more and more of it. Stillness. That is. And a lot rises to resist it. Being with the storied mind that says----do-do-do-do. Phew! Peeling. Revealing. Plummeting again.
Stillness is me using less resources. Consuming smaller. Less impact on the more than human world.
I’ve been rereading these few pages of Bayo's book as a daily offering to the future. And a reminder to myself!
And wonder---
Where has stillness gone, or perhaps more accurately, where is it living as act-ion-ing?
As doing something that may be not only rebellious, but damn so?
I had a client just the other day who shared that she puts a timer on for 20 minutes when reading a book so she doesn’t “waste” too much time doing that. She feels guilty if she reads too long, like she isn’t being “productive”. A bit too “lazy”.
We had a pretty juicy conversation digging into the story of productivity and how it shapes and is shaping her/us.
Because these western modern times aren’t the only way to live.
They are a narrative that we follow.
That is embedded in so many of our institutions we can’t see the water we are sinking in.
So---
Here are a few more savory lines on a page (questions) from These Wild Beyond Our Fences that I am enamored with.
“What if our human civilization and our experiences were structured by and oriented towards the delightful exploration of the finer details of ecstasy? What if carbon reductionism was not the only way of understanding climate change? What if, when we met, we exchanged singing seeds, shared stories of psychedelic expeditions through the portals of normal wakeful states, and swapped wisdom and rituals on navigating the ambivalence of life? What if we weren’t so addicted to growth, progress, consumption, and independence? What if we befriended dying? What would life look like?”-Bayo Akomolafe, These Wild Beyond Our Fences
These questions give me goosebumps.
Affirm a part of my heart.
Bring me to leaky tears.
You?
Again. Pause.
Notice your response or reaction.
In your mind. Your body. Your heart. Your feet.
Are you frowning, or smiling, or nodding, or shaking your head?
It’s all welcome to the feast of wondering.
Questions, like stillness, can be sat with. Stirred.
Wondering is movement within stillness, perhaps.
Answering not a finish line, more a rally on opening.
What if you ventured down the still path and sat beside these musings?
Who might you be becoming? Shaper. Shape. Shaping.
Join me in inviting these questions into the longer light of summer. Or live into them as long as they are teachers.
If you like his work, here is Bayo's website.
Thank you for hanging with me!
Love y’all,
P.S. If you know someone who would find this article interesting please forward it!
P.P.S. And a story I loved about UBI