Corinne Blum

We are in heightened times. Even as I sit to write this my mind dashes to and fro, grasping for words to congeal it all together. It feels like the ground beneath is rumbling, teasing us to find our foot on every step. The wind is whistling and whirling urging us to discover our own inner eye of the storm. And as time seems to be on fast forward, we are compelled to find our own internal pace, setting the metronome to a steady beat.

It’s easy to get caught up in the storm. To get torn away and stuck in the vicious circle – the house in the tornado’s grip. Or collapse into the rubble that flitters on the ground beneath it all, panicked to find a place of rest. The storm is powerful, perhaps ominous, perhaps exciting. Either way it clutches you, bemuses you with it’s unpredictability.

But in its grasp, as we’re swept away in the flurry, we have two choices to stay afoot: To either plant our roots and ground deeper into the earth whilst allowing our branches to dance and be malleable in the winds, or to let go, surrender and learn to fly.

One is finding the stillness within. Rooting ourselves with the strength and power that connecting to the solidity and tenderness, like that of a mother feeding her infant child, brings. Knowing that these roots – which  like plants, can exist in earth, water or air- are so steadfast that they lend permission for the branches to whirl and dance to the conducting of the wind.

The other is to fall gracefully into the chaos. To have faith that the wind will carry us – like the salty sea allows us to float – trusting that we will be held. And in this letting go that is held in surrender’s arms, we may grow wings. Wings to fly and dance-dance to the winds song.

Both choices bring us to the same place. One of peace where struggle ceases to exist and the unknown fancies our eye. A place where the Self abides. Whether we choose to ground or let go, the bridge to the Self is the gentle gaze inwards, the inhalation and pause-just long enough to listen-“which way do you beckon me my love, my friend, the one who always knows which way the wind blows.”

I haven’t sat around doing nothing, and by nothing I really mean nothing, for I cannot remember when. No watching of the tv or a film. No Reading. No searching Facebook’s home page for the latest gossip. No emailing, talking on the phone or texting. I am simply lying in the stillness of nothingness.

My mind gently wonders about. Sometimes I find myself caught in boredom and the discomfort of “doing” nothing. The urge to find entertainment beckons. I decide to feel the discomfort, move into it and be. Suddenly the boredom goes away and I find an unusual comfort in the stillness again. I say unusual, because perhaps it is unfamiliar or long forgotten. The days of doing nothing and being in the suspension of that space seems historical. A thought of “Oh yeah, life was once that way” which might as well be filed away with grandfathers “I remember when a pack of gum was a nickel in my day”.

Sometimes my mind gets caught with intrigue over past memories and future thoughts. They lazily dance between scenes and scenarios, a silent film in my minds projection.

“It’s kind of nice doing nothing” he says to me, in a moment where boredom’s reach has found the back of my neck. “Yeah it is quite nice” my inner chatter responds. There is an odd deliciousness to it like a new flavor you are contemplating.

The sounds of the room take shape composing the notes that make up their day. The figures on the mantle seem, in their stillness, to have the greatest story. My mind delves in and listens. My state goes from drawing back in observation to melting in, into this middle world of stillness in motion. I relax. I warm to the moment and allow my gaze to sweep over the photo on the wall for the dozenth time, each time finding a new story within it.

How rarely we do this, I think. The art of doing nothing, of just being, without reaching for something better or pushing away what we imagine we do not want. Slow down, slow down. My pen no longer knows which way to go. The pages don’t need to be filled. Somehow when they are empty they are so much more full. How ironic that is, I think. We fill our lives with busy moments to give more meaning to what is in fact meaningless. We are full, we are stuffed. Another button needs undoing to loosen the waist, the waist of “wasting” time filling time.

So how about we digest, take a moments rest and let be. I return to me, and my imaginations eye, wondering through as time more slowly passes by.

After having taken a long break from writing I was finding it hard to put my thoughts down. The palette seemed dry and though I felt I had a lot to share, I was stuck in not knowing how to communicate it. The process was very cerebral, which I’ve grown to learn, is not the place to write from. Of course we use our minds but the inspiration (which was what I was forgetting) needs to come from a passionate place, from the body, heart, a place that is unthinking yet all knowing.

Inspiration: It wasn’t that I was not motivated or wanted to write, but as I said it was something I was thinking about having to do. I was confined by my minds need to produce something. I wrote, but it had no flow. It was fine, passable but lacked passion and personality. I needed inspiration but inspiration isn’t something we can fabricate or induce but we can ask for it and it will show up even in the slightest of ways. So this morning I stepped outside with my cup of tea and stood in a sliver of sun that shone through the buildings. I closed my eyes and took it in. I melted into it and with that thoughts came of what I wanted to write about. It was just that; taking the time, taking it in, and for me that sliver of sun shining on my face was inspiration enough to open up to what needed to come through me.

See life isn’t entirely about going and getting it as we’re so routinely enforced to believe. Yes, that is one side of it but life is about balance so there has to be another side. What we forget is the receiving part. Life, nature, is cyclical. We give, we receive, we give again. But in a time of heightened technology and consumerism, we are so busy attaining, needing, wanting, grabbing, our minds rapidly bored when a lapse of unfilled time occurs. What this means is we are constantly external, grasping for something outside of us to satiate our needs and though we may not be entirely conscious of it, we’re tapped out.

So why am I writing about this, what does this have to do with the work that I do, and how does it help you? Well, my point is we have to shift the paradigm around. When it comes to relationships we may be desperately searching for it. We want it, we’re going everywhere trying to find it but there is nothing we can grab hold of. Why? Because we are outside of ourselves, we’re not listening. If we’re looking, looking, looking we never find it and this is because we’re not in our bodies, we’re not grounded and we’re not clear. You know when you are shopping for something in particular you rarely find it, and at the end of the day you’re exhausted because your eyes have been scanning intensely to no avail. Being outside of ourselves is tiring and it doesn’t often lend itself to getting what we need and want.

What is the shift? If we turn things around and come back to ourselves we can ask ourselves, what do I really want? What is my intention? And the most important part of this, don’t think about it, feel it. When we connect to the feeling of what we desire all of a sudden we drop into our body and there we find ground. From that place, if we can learn to trust it, we can open up to receiving what it is we want. Now to clarify, receiving doesn’t mean being passive. It is active but in a state of being rather than doing. That’s wherein lies the balance.

So when wanting to find a relationship, rather than going to all the pubs, the parties and ‘in’ places to be with an unblinking eye surveying the parameters of possibility, try turning it around. Bring it back in, connect to what you want and how that feels, and allow yourself to receive it rather than needing to find it. You don’t need to figure out how it’s going to happen or work out, you just need to focus on what it is you want and open up to the spontaneous inspiration that will arise when you let go and just be.