“Let tiny drops of stillness fall gently through my day”
Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr-Baumann
Ms Ungunmerr- Baumann is an Aboriginal elder, and a renowned artist, activist, writer and public speaker.
Oh how this quote spoke to me today. It has been feeling a lot like we have gone from slow-time, the fallow time, the time of waiting, into the re-emergence at warp-speed. Several major things rushed themselves forward from August to June and involved hours of preparations and long days of hard work.
So we find ourselves feeling bustled and a bit frayed.
And then, tiny drops of stillness...
Sometimes we can only manage tiny droplets but oh what a balm they are. Folk who gather their energy from quiet time, from solitude, from stillness, need these moments. Perhaps they are needed more like a flow of stillness; but when things are tight, droplets will do.
I think I also responded to the idea of drip feeding stillness into your day; which seemed to acknowledge the reality of a lot of people's lives - the attention to and for others; the transiting; the scheduling; the busy-ness of it all.
I think she was suggesting that we don't all need to go off into the forest for hours and absorb the stillness; but rather, finding a steady stream of small moments of stillness in days of frenzy will renew us and sustain us.
Tiny droplets on an agave leaf.
Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr-Baumann
Ms Ungunmerr- Baumann is an Aboriginal elder, and a renowned artist, activist, writer and public speaker.
Oh how this quote spoke to me today. It has been feeling a lot like we have gone from slow-time, the fallow time, the time of waiting, into the re-emergence at warp-speed. Several major things rushed themselves forward from August to June and involved hours of preparations and long days of hard work.
So we find ourselves feeling bustled and a bit frayed.
And then, tiny drops of stillness...
Sometimes we can only manage tiny droplets but oh what a balm they are. Folk who gather their energy from quiet time, from solitude, from stillness, need these moments. Perhaps they are needed more like a flow of stillness; but when things are tight, droplets will do.
I think I also responded to the idea of drip feeding stillness into your day; which seemed to acknowledge the reality of a lot of people's lives - the attention to and for others; the transiting; the scheduling; the busy-ness of it all.
I think she was suggesting that we don't all need to go off into the forest for hours and absorb the stillness; but rather, finding a steady stream of small moments of stillness in days of frenzy will renew us and sustain us.
Tiny droplets on an agave leaf.
"tiny drops of stillness" ... the wisdom of that being enough
ReplyDeleteas so often happens, you have sent me off to explore this artist's works, and at the very first image I thought how her tiny drops of paint were the perfect real-ization of her words ... then explored some more and found "dadirri" ... thank you, as always, for the journey
So happy Liz when a word here or there triggers a wander afar...yes the dots do appear as drops! there is much within 'dadirri' I think...
Delete"tenderly, gently" as the Australian glass artist Neil Roberts (RIP) wrote in neon all those years ago
ReplyDeletesuch a beautiful and simple sentiment Mo
DeleteF- what beautiful and wise words. B
ReplyDeleteBeautiful, and words to hold onto...
Delete