by David Kundtz
Animals can also serve as symbols of particular virtues or qualities that we want to incorporate into our lives: the courage of a lion, the loyalty of a dog, or the playfulness of a cat. Thus the sight of the animal or its representation can call us to a Stillpoint and remember the quality we emulate.
You can see an animal as a totem, as an emblem of your own self, or as a guardian spirit. For years my niece and I have been wilderness traveling-companions, needing no excuse to get a group together and strike out in canoes or kayaks. During those excursions we have come to know our totems as the bear (mine) and the dolphin (hers). They have become meaningful symbols, emblems of what we need or appreciate in our lives and of what we want to achieve.
Seasons, weather, and movements of the earth
Winter, spring, summer, fall, rain, sun, wind, fog, snow, hail, mist, holy days, liturgical seasons, holiday seasons, or family birthdays: all of these and many more can be occasions for Stillpoints and sometimes for Stopovers as well. All of these seasons and conditions are pregnant with meaning—coziness of winter, new life of spring, playfulness of summer, and the advancing darkness of autumn.
Every day of every year offers many occasions for Stillpoints merely by noticing that we are outside or by noticing the calendar or season and letting them lead you to what you need in the moment.
As I am writing this, our planet has just been visited by the comet Hale-Bopp. It has been the occasion of wonderful Stillpoints for me. It started on my birthday while I was having dinner with family and friends in the Napa Valley. It was a beautifully clear and crisp night in spring. We were seated in the restaurant's outdoor portico with a fire crackling in the fireplace nearby. To the east, I looked up to watch an eclipse of the moon; to the west, I looked up to watch Hale-Bopp soaring through space. The combination of visible cosmic drama, significant birthday, perfect company, and the beauty of the place provided me not only with several Stillpoints that evening, but with many more, even to this moment, in the remembering.
This listing—this journey down the pathway to your Stopping Woods—is just a hint of what can call you to a time of Stopping. Be sure to spend a moment gathering your thoughts or making a list of the kinds of things that especially call you. They might not be the expected things like holy objects or seasons of the year; they may even seem quite odd.
One of mine is fishponds. When I was very young—maybe four or five, Petey, a little boy down the street who was younger than I, drowned in the fishpond in his backyard. It was my first encounter with death, and it happened in a place with which I was familiar and where I had often played. It had a profound effect on me. From that day to this, I don't see or hear of a fishpond without thinking briefly of Petey and the fragility of life and the need to make every moment count: a Stillpoint.
Does anything come to your mind that might be unusual triggers for your Stopping? Perhaps you can keep your list handy and continue your process of defining how you will incorporate Stopping into your daily routine.
You can't get there from here.
OGDEN NASH
46
Stopping while Going from Here to There
Especially when you are thinking that poet Ogden Nash's words make perfect sense and Stopping feels like something that you can't get to from where you are now, it is important to remember this: Stopping often takes place most easily during a time of transition from one event to another or from one place to another, whether it is a Stillpoint between appointments, on the way to or from work, on a Stopover weekend between work weeks, or on a Grinding Halt between life stages, it is a powerful “pause between the notes.” To identify your most common transition is a significant step toward incorporating Stopping into your life.
I suppose the most typical transition time for most people is the daily commute. For commuters, Stillpoints can transform this time from horror to haven. If you were to see these moments (or for some, hours) of transition as welcome pauses or rests wherein you can Stop, you might even look forward to them.
If you drive your car to work, you are probably thinking, as I have often thought, “in that horrible traffic, as tired and hot as I often feel, as frustrating as my day has been, how could I possibly look forward to that time?” But it is possible to incorporate Stillpoints into your drive. And believe me: you'll feel better.
Obviously, the only parts of the Stillpoint that won't work while driving are the optional parts of closing your eyes and diverting your attention or anything which would endanger you on the road. Your first concern must be to remain alert and attentive to the act of driving. But there is still much you can do within those parameters. The driving Stillpoint will be less introspective, and will be more geared to your physical and mental comfort.
Recall the idea from part I about intentional living: the need to take the things of daily life out of the realm of habitual routine and into the realm of conscious choice. It applies here: You can intentionally turn drive time into Stopping time. Choose to consciously breathe every time you reach a red light or stop sign or every time someone cuts you off. Choose music that soothes, choose the Stillpoint message you need to hear, choose to put this time in the hands of God, choose to use positive vocabulary when talking and thinking of commuting, and, lastly, choose to see your commute time not as horrible and something you have to endure, but as valuable and something that enhances your life, your powerful pause, and your rest between the notes. From now on: Drive time is Stillpoint time.
Trains, buses, airplanes, and boats all are ideal places for Stillpoints. They have the advantage of leaving the driving to someone else so that your Stillpoints can be more complete and effective.
What are some other transition times in your life? Every day is filled with them: from asleep to awake, from bathroom to bedroom, from breakfast to the car, from school to work, and from weekday to weekend. In other words, transition time is from any one thing or place or time to any other thing or place or time; they are all the “from-to's” of your life.
So whenever it feels like you can't get from here (wherever you are) to there (Stopping), think of transitions. What are you in-between? Where are you coming from? Where are you going? What was last and what is next? As the nature and needs of your transitions are identified, the specific way of Stopping will also become clear.
All walking is discovery.On foot we take the timeto see things whole.
HAL BORLAND
47
Moving while Stopping
There are some people who just have a very difficult time keeping still, that is, maintaining their body in a non-moving mode for any length of time. This immediately makes me think of Carla. When I am with her, I am constantly aware that she never stops jiggling her legs, moving here, going there, or gesticulating unendingly. She has a very hard time staying still. There's nothing at all wrong with that; it's just her nature. Whenever I feel anxious, I can identify with Carla: I don't want to sit still, it bothers me, and I need to move.
Henry David Thoreau understands Carla, too. In his essay “Walking,” he says, “I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least—and it is commonly more than that—sauntering through the woods and over the fields.” For these folks, as well as for all of us, Stopping can be done while moving.
In his essay, Thoreau chose the word sauntering. In the same essay he speaks of sauntering as a word which “is beautifully derived ‘from idle people who roved about the country, in the Middle Ages, and asked charity, under pretense of going ’á la Sainte Terre,’ to the Holy Land, till the children exclaimed, ‘There goes a Sainte-Terrer,’ (thus saunterer) a Holy-Lander. . . . They who never go to the Holy Land in their walks . . . are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds.” So, walking is made for the holy land of Stopping.
How about jogging-Stopping? This would seem more challenging, at least for me, but maybe not for you. I think it would be difficult to maintain a quality of calm and attentiveness while moving quickly.
Thoreau slows walking down to sauntering; running or jogging speeds it up. Recalling the equation of “Speed is to forgetting as slowness is to remembering” would seem to bear this out. Working out in a gym or at home would seem to fall into the same speed category. There is a lot of physical exertion and concentration involved. I think these high-energy activities could start with, pause in the middle for, and end with Stillpoints, and thus transform the entire exercise experience into something beyond physical development. But this surely is a matter of individual preference.
During a recent workshop, I asked how people had experienced Stopping in their lives. Immediately Bill spoke up and said, “On the golf course.” He explained his inward state of mind; his peacefulness; and how, by focusing on hitting the ball, he is free to let everything else go. “I often have to be reminded that it's my turn to play.”
There is another important way to move and Stop at the same time: pacing. I discovered pacing when I was a seminary student, and I have used it regularly since then. Pacing is slowly walking a predetermined and repetitive course while mentally concentrating on something else. Walking in circles while praying the rosary is how I discovered its value. In the seminary, every day at five o'clock the afternoon bell would sound; all talking would immediately cease and the seminarians would take out their rosaries, cast their eyes down, and begin to walk around the grounds, silently pacing. The Buddhists call this walking meditation.
You might like to try pacing. I find it especially helpful when I am feeling anxious or nervous for any reason. Pick out a safe course, inside or outside. The course must be predictable, safe, and repeatable. Pace back and forth in your room or office, in a circle in the yard, in a park, or anywhere; you don't need a lot of room for this. Rather than close your eyes, you can cast them down at the ground. The moving seems to soothe the anxiety and because your course is safe and predictable—you don't have to pay attention to where you are physically going—you can in fact be still in your soul: a Stillpoint.
The ultimate in pacing is the labyrinth. The labyrinth is an ancient, universal image of life, a large circle with a clear, winding path from the outside to the center and back. (Not to be confused with a maze, which has blind ends and tricks). The California Pacific Medical Center, which has a labyrinth in its courtyard for its patients and staff, calls it “a sacred path to health and wholeness.” People are encouraged to walk, run, or dance—most walk slowly—in and out of the sacred circle.
Dr. Lauren Artress of San Francisco's Grace Cathedral is mainly responsible for bringing the ancient practice to contemporary awareness. In her book, Walking a Sacred Path: Rediscovering the Labyrinth as a Spiritual Tool, she describes the labyrinth as offering “a sacred and stable place to focus the attention and listen to the longing of the soul” and as a “tool to guide healing, deepen self-knowledge and empower creativity.”
Walking the labyrinth is the epitome of moving while Stopping. Dr. Artress says that for many who have walked the labyrinth— and I am surely one of them—“time seems to stand still.” Yes! There! That's it!
To live is so startlingit leaves little timefor anything else.
EMILY DICKINSON
48
The Young, the Old, and the Violent
I hope you've gotten the idea that Stopping is a very adaptable process. People will tend to develop their own style, and any given person might well do Stopping in different ways at different times. There are very few rules and no dogmas at all; that is, Stopping has no content in the form of beliefs or doctrines. It is pure process and can fit with any spiritual system and with any person's style. The idea is simply to achieve enough quiet and enough stillness to hear the truth, both within and without.
Some folks will prefer to keep moving during their Stillpoints, while others will prefer to stay quite physically still. Some will be on a golf course and some will be in a chapel. For Stopovers, some will stay home and others will go far away. Some will be attracted to the long times of Grinding Halts and do them several times in their lives, while others will never do one. Some will . . . well, you get the idea. Please keep in mind however, that the great thing about the Stillpoints expression of Stopping is that you can do them in any way, in any place, and all the time.
There are three groups of people for whom Stopping offers special implications and challenges. They are the young, the old, and the violent.
Children and adolescents
The general assumption in the book is that we are speaking to and about adults. And in general, adults are the ones who most need Stopping and have most of the power (money and influence) to make it happen. But both adolescents and children need Stopping as much as we do and, in some ways, they can teach us a lot about it.
If you have any experience with adolescents, you know that they can be very spacey or distracted from what you think they should be attending to. Although frustrating, it's a normal and important part of their development and, in a manner of speaking, it is one of their ways of Stopping, of taking time out from all the challenges of life, and of trying to remember who they are and what's important to them. Because we associate it with the awkward and frustrating years of adolescence, we miss the value of doing our own variety of spacing out; it might feel too juvenile.
And, of course, the Stopping ability of young children is legendary. One need only watch a lone child at play to notice and learn.
We need to take lessons from the younger members of our families. Really though, it is not a lesson we need to learn as much as it is a memory we need to recapture, for we too were their age and had their same native expertise. We just lost it.
More than anything, we adults can help by creating times, places, and opportunities for Stopping for the young people in our lives. Help them notice the pauses between their notes and the value of them. Of course the first comment your efforts might bring is, “Mom, I'm bored!” or “Dad, there's nothing to do!” but with persistence and example on our part, they may learn the value of Stopping.
The elderly
The real pros at Stopping are old people. In the dedication of this book, I indicate that my father was an example to me of how to use Stopping. This was most especially true in his later years. He enjoyed over twenty years of retirement and was very content doing very little and spending many hours simply Stopped. As he went through his losses—ability to play golf, sufficient eyesight for reading, and adequate hearing for normal conversation—he just remained quiet, contemplating and remembering.
My father was not one to tell you his feelings at any great length, but when he did, it was often worth noting. My mother tells this story: One evening, just a few years before Dad's death at ninety-one, my parents were sitting in their chairs, as they did every evening. Probably my mother was reading and Dad was just sitting quietly. Out of the blue he said to her, “You know, dear, I think I need a computer.” My mother literally dropped her book in amazement and exclaimed, “A computer? What on earth for?” My father's response: “To count my blessings.”
The challenge is to get smart before we get too old—too old to learn or even to change. By developing Stopping now, our years of old age and loss are much more likely to be sweet and calm; you won't be a dear old man or woman unless you are continually becoming a dear younger one. Old Scrooge, in Dickens' A Christmas Carol, really had it easy. Only three terrifying visitors in one miserable night and he became a new man. For the rest of us, it's night by night and day by day.
The violent
I have no idea what to do about the incredible violence that we visit upon ourselves. I watch in amazement and horror the TV ads for movies and television programs filled with terrible human violence, and I read the many news items of murder and mayhem among the young. I know that I am not the only one who feels this way; most of the people I speak with feel the same. It must be because people in power believe that money is always the bottom line and this stuff sells. But why does it sell? I still have no real answer . . . except Stoppi
ng. It is at least a start.
At first it feels, even to me, a very naive answer. But when I think it through, I come to a point of conviction: The only thing that will change the pattern and habit of violence in people is the only thing that has ever morally transformed people—conversion; a turning around of the way one sees things. In order to do that, we must help people Stop, because Stopping is a necessary condition for a change of heart. You can't change if you are not still enough, long enough, to see that there is a different way or better way. Violent people—that's all of us, potentially—are so hugely and profoundly distracted that the better way is literally unimaginable.
Let the youth on the street Stop. Let the network CEOs Stop. Let the actors who portray such horrors Stop. Let the newspaper editors Stop. Let the parents Stop. Let the teachers Stop. Let the men Stop. Let the women Stop. Let the children Stop. Let me and you Stop.
Caring is the greatest thing,caring matters most.
FRIEDRICH VON HUGEL
49
Stopping Is Caring
I believe at this point it is clear that Stopping aims to access those most personal issues, feelings, and truths that are in the heart and soul of each of us and that help us to realize our purpose, and to help us know who we are and what and who is important to us. But Stopping, especially if you stick with it for a while, goes beyond those questions to the bigger, broader ones that affect the world. In fact, in looking at our most personal issues and desires, we can thereby naturally be led out of ourselves to the needs of the world's communities.