Redtree Times

Affirmation— Now at Principle Gallery

Take refuge in silence. You can be here or there or anywhere. Fixed in silence, established in the inner ‘I’, you can be as you are. The world will never perturb you if you are well founded upon the tranquility within. Gather your thoughts within. Find out the thought centre and discover your Self-equipoise. In storm and turmoil be calm and silent. Watch the events around as a witness. The world is a drama. Be a witness, inturned and introspective.

– Ramana Maharshi

This time of year is one of stress for many, especially for those who are a bit withdrawn. There’s a lot of motion and sound surrounding the tension that comes with the obligation in trying to please others. The calming effect of silence is absent. Thinking about this brought me to the post below from back in 2013, one that I have never revisited. It seems to speak, in a way, to the need for that bit of quiet that might be missing in the season. 

Since this is the time for Sunday Morning Music and since it is the holiday season, I thought I’d share a Christmas song that is as calming as they come. It’s the late great Vince Guaraldi and his Christmastime is Here. This is the instrumental version without the chorus of kids. It’s a good listen anytime of the year.

[From 2013]

I often speak of seeking quiet, even absolute silence. I all too often come up short in my search, usually the victim of my own fears and shortcomings which cause me to fill the void around me with sound and chaos.

Silence is pushed aside.

It is only in those times when I allow myself to be pulled completely into my work that I feel the silence slowly creeping back in, stilling the fears and doubts that seem to wail around me like sirens at times. It is at these moments while painting that I feel in a small way as though I am like a witness that the great guru Ramana Maharsi advises us to be in the passage above.

I am then calm and silent. I watch and gather my inner thoughts as I feel myself melding with the colors and forms before me. It is absolute peace as I go deeper into this inner realm.

That’s as close as I can describe in words the feeling I have when I lose myself to painting. The painting shown here is an example of this feeling. It is a different painting than the one shown in the 2013 post. But like that painting, the one shown, Affirmation, is simple and quiet yet richly harmonious and full.

It feels outside of time, always in the present. It is both inward and outward looking, a silent witness that is not fearful of the future or regretful of the past. It is just as it is– quiet and placid.

All that I seek.