Freedom

Silence is the key to freedom.

David White, Consolations II

Ten days into a 30 day Himalayan trek my mind fell into a deep quiet.  The chattering just stopped. Everything that was so hard and strange about the land and the trekking wiped my mind clean of its usual grasping for comfort and pushing away discomfort. There was just the walking step after step, passing stone upon stone, the teasing out a deeper breath from the thinning air, the ever present wind and grit, the majesty of the mountains.  Of her 2,700 mile trek across the Australian desert Robyn Davidson wrote that time disappeared and it began to feel as if she were standing in place as the earth moved beneath her feet. This was my experience of time and movement in the Himalayas.  The days of the week disappeared as did the hours in a day as I was with myself and the unfolding experience in the greater vertical depth of each moment.

This is the freedom of a quiet mind free from its anxious ruminating thinking.  A freedom from the incessant judging and comparing to others. A freedom from wanting to change what feels in the moment difficult or boring.  A freedom from being swept up by the expectations and demands of the corporation, the culture, the technology.  Freedom from being cut off from a connection to the deeper parts of life. In this quiet, we are free to take in the richness of life through another's laughter, the snow covering the meadow, the clothes slapped against stone for cleaning. In quiet, I hear more fully my daughter's stories, my mother's songs, my neighbors anxiety about the coming storm. And find a way one more time into the river cold and refreshing before the season's changing.