Have you ever sat in a hospital ACU isolation unit, your
loved one too sick, too restless, for you to read or work or do anything except
hold his hand and pray?
In those anxious moments, the aggressive, active mind
spreads turmoil and fear. The “what ifs?”, the guilt, the worry, all jostle and
shove their way into your mind until you struggle to breathe under the weight
of waiting for the first sign that your prayers have been answered and your
loved one is safe.
At first, when I sat watching the restless sleep of my
beloved husband, his face grey against the hospital linen, with its gay white
swirls adorning the light blue pillow cases, this inaction, this helpless inability
to do anything other than wait, was purgatory.
Later, this testing time became a great teacher, for I am
learning the art of being still.
There's the physical skill of sitting still; of learning
to control my natural inclination towards
movement and busyness. Wriggling in the chair, scratching itches and
rustling through my bag - all futile efforts to pass the time, so that the
clock conveniently placed on the ACU ward wall would magically speed up from ten
o’clock to five past ten to twenty past ten ...
Some people may see the art of being still as being
passive, but stillness is an active art, a conscious act of choice with a
definite goal: mastering the body to keep one’s natural movements to a minimum,
allowing my beloved to sleep and heal in a peaceful, calm atmosphere.
Once that essential skill is learned another, more
difficult, skill is required to master the art of stillness ... Keeping the
mind still, a seemingly impossible task with nothing to do all day except think
and think.
But, slowly, as the minutes blur into hours, and the
hours into days, I'm learning that there are as many rewards in stillness as
there are in furious goal orientated activity.
For there, in the muted lights of that lonely isolation
ward, I hear a voice speaking in that stillness. Whatever name you give it -
call it the voice of God, the spirits of angels and ancestors, or simple
craziness - it carries with it the message of hope that all will be well; an
acceptance that whatever happens is part of that mysterious path chosen by my Divine
Soul before I was even born; that what is, is what is meant to be and I will
cope with whatever the day brings.
When those voices whisper their mysteries to me, I suddenly find the art of stillness has become an open doorway to a world where miracles and healing replace worry and fear ... and I can move again, rising from my chair as my beloved's voice calls to me, wanting to know that I am near and telling me that he is, at last, awake.
When those voices whisper their mysteries to me, I suddenly find the art of stillness has become an open doorway to a world where miracles and healing replace worry and fear ... and I can move again, rising from my chair as my beloved's voice calls to me, wanting to know that I am near and telling me that he is, at last, awake.
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| The art of being still becomes a doorway to another world. Image purchased from www.iStock.com ©iStock.com/"step into the great beyond" by Yuri_Arcurs |
