At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
—T.S. Eliot
The world is turning
From this vantage point turmoil appears to be increasing in every sphere we can imagine and on a global scale; political, social, economical, religious, and healthcare. We are witnessing events we never fathomed before now and processing the collective grief and trauma.
It is overwhelming, and it’s easy to feel hopeless
My hope for our world is that each of us will remember our Divine nature and begin to turn things around for the betterment of all beings, and in ways that create peace especially for those whose lives have been marginalized for so long.
As T.S. Eliot points out in his ode to the nature of time, each and every turning has a center. The poem refers to the past and future gathering in the still point of the present moment. At the center of any movement, there is stillness around which everything revolves. In this stillness is the dance, inertia, and momentum that allows all movement to take place. Nature shows us this clearly when we look at the eye of a hurricane or the center of a galaxy.
If we are mindful that we are not the spinning, we find the center
A center point that moves isn’t stable. Think of the wheel on a bike or a revolving door. Without a stable center, the bike wheel falls off and the door will not move. Just as T.S. Eliot said, we don’t call this fixity. It is not stiff or immobile. This is a place of still, stable, dancing strength.
An exercise to try
Turn off your phone, computer, TV, and any other source of potential distraction. Notice how you are sitting and bring stillness to reside wherever there is tension and unease. Allow that your thinking has the potential to be still, even if it doesn’t feel that way now.
When the body has this quality of stillness, so does the mind. When the mind has this quality of stillness, so does the body.
This stillness is your place of strength
From this place of stillness, we can reach out into the spinning world and do what needs to be done. From there, in the midst of a spiraling life, you can see the options that you have for what they are and choose how to proceed. When you leave your center and start to feel off kilter, return to that place of stillness in your own self by noticing where your body and mind could use less effort.
