If we cannot wait,
       we cannot know the
              right time to move.

If we cannot be still,
       our actions will have              gathered no power.
- Friends of Silence

Journaling Question

Enter into a dialogue with your still point. What does it want to tell you about how you are treating it?

. . .

The first requirement of being effective, of being creative, is to have an energy reservoir to draw on. Rested, the brain has tremendous, unknowable power.

An artist must have downtime, time to do nothing.  Defending our right to such time takes courage, conviction, and resiliency.  Such time, space, and quiet will strike our family as a withdrawal from them.  It is...An artist requires the upkeep of creative solitude. An artist requires the time of healing alone.  Without this period of recharging, our artist becomes depleted.... We strive to be good, to be nice, to be helpful, to be unselfish.  We want to be generous, of service, of the world.  But what we really want is to be left alone.  When we can't get others to leave us alone, we eventually abandon ourselves.  To others, we may look like we're there.  We may act like we're there.  But our true self has gone to ground.. . .Over time, it becomes something worse than out of sorts.  Death threats are issued.

 - The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron

I imagine my quiet center as a person, and enter into a dialogue with it. Do you feel nurtured? It responds with an immediate answer, one I’m not particularly wanting to hear. It tells me to give it a day a week, a weekend a month and a week every six months to focus on our relationship. No computers. No internet. No work other than a pen and paper.

Set aside time for solitude, quiet reflection, for journaling, hikes, lots of sleep. Reading. Offer space for that quiet voice inside to come forth. It is shy, reticent and profound.