Why being quiet together is a gift
and how embracing stillness allows us to hear the creative hum within
I often find that whatever I am teaching also seems to worm its way into the rest of my life. Similar concepts arise in the books I’m reading, the theme appears in a podcast or newscast I’m listening to, I overhear conversations about the same topic. This synchronicity is nothing new, but it still surprises me. Isn’t that the most wonderful thing about life—at the risk of sounding like Pollyanna or Anne of Green Gables—that we can be surprised over and over and over again?
I’ve been hard at work on the final modules of the online Creatology course in the last couple weeks. The final module invites us to explore stillness as a space for self-discovery and creative power.
If the last three years have taught us anything, it seems that we might have learned about the power of stillness. And yet, as lockdowns waned and we began to re-enter our communities, I wonder if we’ve forgotten the lesson. Everyone seems excited to reconnect again, but without consideration for the power of stillness. There’s something deeply spiritual about coming to a halt, stepping into silence, and staying there past the point of comfort.
My husband and I were recently talking about being still in tandem. When I envision stillness or quiet, I typically picture a place in nature, far from the reaches of other humans, alone. But why do we think quiet must be synonymous with isolation? I think we think it’s easier to achieve silence or stillness when there is no one else around. But is that true? Or, perhaps a better question, does that have to be true?
I think there is real power in being quiet in tandem, and yet we aren’t very good at it, are we? When we go for a hike with friends we talk, when we are on a road trip, we chatter. Brian reminded me how often he and I sit in companionable silence—not the silence of anger or withdrawal, but one of profound connection. Sometimes I forget that I’m not talking to him, because I feel so engaged even in the quiet. Our mutual distaste for small talk and years of practice honoring each other’s very different introverted natures paved the way to this point.
This is, I think, the point. Stillness takes practice and it’s challenging. We often—especially the extraverts in the room—don’t take to it easily. We want to fill the quiet, we think connection comes through conversation, words, even when they are relatively mundane. But the depths that are available to us and the next-level connection we can invite in is profound if we are willing to go still.
Collective contemplation has a distinct power. It’s the unique sensation we have when we’re in savasana at the end of a yoga class, or noiselessly sitting with heads bowed in prayer in a sanctuary. You know that feeling I’m talking about—the current of energy that runs through the room that hums at the lowest frequency?
When we trust ourselves to be soundlessly together I think we open to a different level of intimacy, with our fellow humans and with the world around us.
We’re exploring this in Creatology. As I revisit and reintegrate these practices, I’m reminded how simple yet empowering they can be. I’ve been traversing tough roads of late, and yet there is solace here in these in-between spaces where quiet exists alongside creation. When I get quiet enough to listen to what’s being communicated on a different level, I can hear the hum of a deeper creation ready to be birthed, sometimes nascent and ethereal, but there just the same.
I share a lot about the science of creativity in Creatology, but I also want to open the door to explore the mystical, spiritual, unexplainable nature of creation as well. Science is the entry point. It demonstrates the mechanisms we can manipulate and the levers we can pull to cultivate our creative nature. Then we have the opportunity to step into the world of the unexplained.
I can’t teach that. But I can provide opportunities to learn and relearn, be reminded and practice. I’m doing it for myself all. The. TIME. And that’s all we can really do for ourselves and each other, right? Just keep practicing, relearning, reminding and returning.
If you’re interested in being in the loop on all things Creatology, send me an email at sarah@bewonderment.com or visit the site to be added to the waiting list.