The stillness and the flow
It had taken a while, but now he was here.
After hours of driving with barely another car in either direction, he wasn't actually looking for 'here', but as he steered out of a long curve, it unfolded and shouted at him to pull over the car. And it happened in the right spot at a point that glared down in to the valley while equally able to gaze up to the highland peaks. The early morning fog was starting to lift from the higher ground with glimpses of blue hardening in the sky, despite menacing intrusions of dark grey cloud.
He turned off the engine, the stereo silenced with it. He unclicked the seatbelt and then, without a thought, he found himself just sat there.
His hand sliding down 180 degrees off the steering wheel to join his other on his lap was the last murmour of sound. His gaze was soft as he raised his head slightly to fix on the grey and purple craggy peaks. A fraying sheet of fog shifted ever so slowly; he would have not been able to see if it was actually moving had he not sat so still. He almost dared not move, willing the grey-white to break and let in more colour.
His only movement now was the slight rising of his chest with each inhale. The deflation on the exhale. He had never payed much attention to this wave of breath before, yet sat here it had become so clear, so evident. He was so aware.
Without moving his head, his eyes turned downward, gaze staying soft, scanning over the dashboard, each dial, switch and icon that would light up at the turn off the key again. The stereo screen that had been filled with the satnav map was now blank, the opaqueness instead mirrored back upon his eyes vacantly fixing in to it. He felt the small of his back still snug in to the car seat, as if to say to him; "Please do not move, not yet, this is where and how you need to be."
He obeyed. There was no distraction. His awareness of the stillness and the flow of his slowed, deliberate breathing.
Was it the flow of the breath that made his stillness possible, or better, the awareness of his stillness possible? Without the breath, is there awareness? Maybe a couple of minutes had passed, maybe more. He wasn't even sure anymore if he had consciously chosen to sit here so immobile, his gaze so soft, his breathing so much more controlled. Was he being or becoming?
As if sitting up to attention, he took in a deep breath and let the exhale rasp the back of his throat. With a slow but fluid movement he tugged the door handle and swung the door open. He waited a second to see and feel the change of the outside world surrounding him, yet there was nothing. It was if he hadn't moved or even opened the door, what was inside was outside. Only a slight chill in the morning air greeted him. He swung his legs out and the firm, sharp crackle of roadside gravel underfoot shattered the state as he stood up. The starter pistol after the intense anticipation of all sprinters with their coiled muscles, poised for launch. Instead of exploding out the blocks, he froze, letting the inner echo of that gravel shot fade with each slow breath. A grounding sense of solace came over him.
An eerie hush prevailed where he expected to hear at least something; a breeze, a flutter. There was only the flow of his breath. Evermore aware of his breath.
He turned his head down to the valley to what seemed like a landscape portrait in an art museum. Looking back up he stared at the stubborn fog, gradually more able to spy the peaks and the blue and sun nudging in above. The fog grudgingly looked back at him, as if dragging his feet and saying: "yeah, yeah, I'm going, don't worry, but my mate over there is coming for you," nodding over at the incoming loom of an inauspicious, dark-grey bodyguard mass of cloud on its way.
Unthreatened by Fog's words, his lips edged a smile and within himself he said back to him: "That's fine, let him come, everyone is welcome here, it's all good."
He let his thoughts come and go. He leaned on the open door, his arms splayed with elbows wide across the top edge, gently resting his chin on his hands. His head anchored, his eyes scanned the patchy green, the swathes of purple, the grey flint and tones of brown earth and bark landscape. The solitary two-lane road, clean and cutting through it all with its pristine white-painted dash lines, stretching out before him down into the valley. Amongst others on the hillside heath, he noticed a knarly looking tree. Its trunk forked in to junctions under the hood of awakening green as Spring took hold, stretching its body after a long winter sleep. He wondered how many times it had stretched and awoken, how many years before him it had been there, and how many more it will be there after he has left this world.
He stood up straight, took another deep breath and let it out through his mouth, the sound of it feeling like a gust of wind had whipped down on him, breaking the silence again. His steam of breath not evaporating immediatly but hanging on in the bite of the morning air for a moment, before dissipating as if it was sprinting to catch up and join with the breaking fog. That gust he made, that noise, did not belong here right now. The flow yes, but nothing should break the stillness, it had to be in harmony. His breath returned to normal, slowly through his nose to make amends. He had to recalibrate and bring back the balance.
He had seen a lot of beauty throughout this world; in the midst of nature, in the urban sprawl, in the preserve of cultures. This surrounding, rolling crag was raw and a shedding of excess. It was a reminder to hold with reverence. Nothing moved but everything flowed. He had stopped here because he instinctively new it was a cradle of energy.
It carried a sovreign frequency, and he was tuned in. He didn't touch that dial.
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