Tag Archives: stillness

Ways of Seeing

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This June we produced our annual crop of whitetail fawns, a pair of twins born on the west side of the house and a single fawn born in the grove somewhere on the back slope. Again, I noticed something about how fawns perceive the world. Because everything is new to them, they are curious about everything––the smell of fence wire around the peonies, the behavior of crows, anything their mother eats. Early days with fawns remind me of the first few years of my sons’ lives. They were as curious as fawns about everything in the human and natural environment. Fortunately, they have maintained much of this early openness to the world.

These observations about young deer and my sons remind me of the qigong practice called Eight Silk Brocades. As this practice was taught to me, the fourth movement in the first set invites the practitioner to see everything in one’s field of vision. While doing this practice almost every morning, I have noticed that I tend to skip over some objects in my field of view as I turn my head back and forth. For example, I notice mahonia blooming in the rock garden on my right but miss the mix of shadow and light in the lilacs on my way toward my neighbor’s pine tree on the left. This practice asks a person to see not just the objects we want to see but everything else in the field of awareness. This is a tall order.

On July 23, the weather seemed perfect for a paddle out to Wild Horse Island. I began by paddling through a stiff headwind to reach the east shore of the Island, swam a couple of times off a driftwood-covered beach, then proceeded counterclockwise around the island, pausing again on the west shore before letting a faint tailwind push me back to my starting point. During the day I noticed my tendency to skip over some things in the field of awareness, but I kept reminding myself, influenced by qigong, to attempt to see the whole. As I approached the first cove, I noticed bighorn rams grazing grass and forbs on the slope above the beach.

This was indeed a wonderful encounter with wild animals at close range as they went about addressing the business of hunger and thirst. But trying to take one of my spiritual practices into my daily life, I reminded myself to also notice the three boatloads of people watching the sheep.

Beyond that, I reminded myself to notice two stones that seemed to have washed downstream from the same strata and were distinctly different from surrounding stones, a stone that reminded me of a flying saucer, and then a floating feather unlike any feather I had ever seen, one with two white dots in a black field.

After leaving the cove I noticed two kayaks traveling east. Again, trying to practice a way of seeing, I slowed down and adjusted my course as we converged from different directions. The woman asked about my “strange looking paddle.” This led to a wonderful conversation about Greenland paddles and then an even more amazing conversation about an academic background the man, my father, and I had in common, all in the middle of the lake. When I reached the west shore all my favorite spots were occupied by other people. Eventually I found a few square feet of gravel where I could secure my boat during a brief hike. I climbed a steep slope up to a bench, noticing that this trail was well traveled by animals on the island. After a brief exploration of the area, I dropped back to my boat. After lifting Bluebird over some sharp boulders and into the water, I felt a faint tug of intuition suggesting that I needed to simply stand still. I kept in touch with my bobbing boat by letting small waves push the kayak into the back of my legs while I kept watching the slope above me. Moments later about 30 bighorn ewes and lambs came bounding down the same slope I had climbed. They poured over logs and boulders, tried to balance on driftwood rolling in the waves, and walked past me, almost as though I was invisible.

Seeing the world as qigong asks us to see presented close encounters with two herds of sheep, their absolute confidence in their own footing and strength, but also the intuition that told me to stand still and wait.

It may be asking too much of the human brain to remain open to the whole field of awareness all the time. But at least on this one day in July, I felt richly rewarded for trying to see the whole field––objects and interactions that interested me as well as everything else in between.

On Stillness

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Last winter when we discovered that all the campsites were booked six months in advance we availed ourselves of historical connections to one of the church camps on Flathead Lake. For a reasonable price we rented an unused cabin during the middle school band camp. Day and night we listened to middle schoolers practicing their instruments or terrorizing a cabin full of sleepers before dawn. In the heat of the day we heard instructors practicing scales in a way that made this necessary discipline seem truly beautiful. The chapel was set up with arcs of chairs, metal stands, keyboards, trap sets, and a xylophone.

Over the course of two days I took advantage of calm weather to make a couple of shorter paddles. On the first day I wandered around Cedar and Shelter Islands but saw no sign of the modest improvements Fish, Wildlife and Parks has approved for visitors to Cedar. On the second day I made the open-water crossing to Wild Horse Island. For once I was not paddling in rain, wind, or hail. It was like paddling a different lake.

Cedar and Shelter Islands before dawn

As much as I love to paddle Bluebird, I also took time to be with the lake, to sit still and observe. Even the marginal comfort of a wooden bunk beat camping on the ground. The sun woke me, not pain in my hips. Taking time to be still I noticed things I miss when I’m in a hurry to get to the lake.

The margins of the lake are a part of the lake. They, like the water’s surface, are ever-changing, a palette for the shifting colors as one plant succeeds another, where Balsamroot gives way to lupine and then tall grasses, as green gives way to yellow and brown or the purple of asters. In addition to sounding brass we listened to little waves lap the shore. No longer trying to prove that I can cross the lake or paddle its length, I felt content being still on its edges.

At home I almost take for granted the value of stillness. When I am still, the Black-throated and Calliope hummingbirds show up on the deck to sip from potted plants or the red feeder. When still, I am more likely to see the warbler in the willows or notice how early morning shadows make mounds of lavender even more beautiful. When still, the moon’s sudden appearance seems like its own kind of brass instrument. For three mornings the same was true at the lake.

On the second morning I locked myself into the boat for the crossing to Wild Horse Island. Able to take a straight shot across the three-mile expanse in calm conditions, I landed at Eagle Cove, a public access point, shed skirt and pfd and began to walk into the forest. By 9 a.m. the sun was already too high for mostly nocturnal creatures to be active; but the air was filled with the calls of young osprey. Without binoculars I could not be certain, but the long, sharply defined feathers led to the tentative conclusion that I was seeing four young birds. They circled each other as they rode the rising and warming air above the island. When one landed on a rocky outcrop to rest, another approached from behind, dropped its legs like landing gear and swooped over the head of its sibling. This caused the resting bird to take to the air and give chase. My stillness among the trees gave me a vantage point on birds of prey at play.

On the third morning I took a bitter cup of instant coffee onto the cabin’s deck and sat in first light. Moving only to raise the cup I noticed a swallow asleep on a dead branch above a bird house someone had nailed to a tree. The silhouetted bird was little more than a swollen node, a knuckle on a branch, a tiny black shape, motionless. When the sun rose over the Missions and brushed the world with warm tones, including the breast of the bird, it sprung to life. It leaped from the branch and without warm-up began to cut arcs through the air. Seeing me it dropped from elevation in a descending curve and rose in front of me to confirm I was a quiet human.

Swallow a moment before flight with Wild Horse in the distance

When still, a better review of one’s choices becomes possible. When still, quiet things reveal themselves. When still, the edges of life become as interesting as the expanse of open weather and water.