let it be quiet

It’s 2am and I should be asleep with the rest of the household. I can hear the whirring of my overhead fan, feel its softening breeze take the edge off this summer’s night. The rise and fall of crickets chirping outside is so low and constant that I forget they’re there, reminded every so often by a higher pitched trill. It’s been about six weeks since I shared my last song, needing to hit the pause button while I reset in this new year. And it feels like it’s time to lift my finger off that pause button (remember when that was a thing).

Let it be quiet is a meditation of sorts, a mantra on finding a womb-like place in which to unravel and be wrapped and held by a deep dark quiet when it’s time to reset and recharge – mentally, physically, spiritually, or creatively. Right now I’m feeling the call to creatively hibernate, to let myself fall into, and be completely held by, a sense of nothingness, letting go of all expectations and agendas. This includes letting go of the wanting. The wanting of it to be dark and for some part of me to fall away, the wanting of something new to arise, the wanting of the seed that will be born to take a particular form.

“What shape waits in the seed of you to grow and spread its branches against a future sky? ”

— Excerpt from the poem ‘What to remember when waking’ by David Whyte

I’ve recently begun some long service leave from work so this notion of taking pause to reset and recharge is very present for me. In January I took part in three online seminars with poet and philosopher David Whyte who spoke to the theme of ‘Mountains and Rivers,’ looking at what is movable and immovable within us. And I love this idea that sometimes when we let ourselves dive deeper into the discomforts of what we think is fixed in us, we come to realise that what at first seemed immovable can begin to shift in some way. And perhaps it is from these fissures in the mountain that a spring may rise, or a stream may flow.

Other than making room for music, writing, and family time, I’m not sure exactly how I will fill my days while I’m on leave, but I’m looking forward to the chance to shed an old skin and see what new one might grow.

Falling back into the waves of singing crickets, itself a mantra to the deep dark quiet, I may just find some slumber before the sun stirs.

let it be quiet

let it be found

here in the silence

deep underground

let it unravel

these knots untangle

let it find matter

let it be found

let it be, let it be, let it be quiet

let it be, let it be, let it be found

let it be, let it be here in the silence

deep underground

here in the quiet

deep down inside

a seed is rising

up to meet the sky