Silent Inspiration

how did i find indigo? six degrees of something or other, crumbs lined into tiny trails, concentric and familiar. all i know is i first read her words and something in me changed. a shift under the surface, rippled wind on my skin. her words didn't just touch me. i wanted to touch them. i wanted to print her words out on parchment and bake them until they smoked up the house. her strength shines through the keyboard. she has this special gift, you see. she lives in a world i do not. and yet she invites me in again and again. take off your ears and put them on the bedside table. you'll hear her, deep as the ocean, leaving ink on your ribcage.

When Krista first asked me about inspiration, believe it or not I had to look the word up. Seriously.

Here’s what came up: 1) Stimulation to do creative work, 2) Somebody or something that inspires, 3) Creativeness, 4) Good idea, 5) Divine influence, 6) Breathing in.

It’s not that I didn’t understand the meaning of the word. I wasn’t exactly sure how that one word was relevant in correlation to someone else. There is a reason for this, an explanation that renders my inquiry believable. Up until 5 years ago, I wasn’t exactly inspired, driven - yes, but in reality a world of difference from what is the general definition of inspiration. None of the above would have been even remotely used to describe me.

“The important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.” – Charles Dubois

So what changed?

Silence - In all its pure, quiet, ethereal, whispered and calming portent that renders one deaf.

It’s the one element that entered my life and halted my rapacious plunder forward. The only thing that was able to immobilize me in my tracks and make me take note of the world around me, a fearful pillager who invaded my very being and stole the essence of my momentum, my heart, my life.

Make no mistake it wasn’t a welcome pirate.

Outside my quiet cocoon, life thrived around me and left me appalled at how it was I had been forgotten between the folds of quiet reserve and gone un-noticed. A pity party of one finds itself a deviant harbor of the meaning - alone.

Slowly amidst the silence, my mind began to quiet the meddlesome noise of indignation and scorn. Noise that favored stress, confusion, turmoil, endless undulated questions, and immense pain. I watched and let my eyes be my ears and began to see life emerge in ways I never knew possible.

My days remained lingering but never stagnant. Instead they were spent in exploration of all those things I had previously rushed on by and left in my wake. The wind rushing through the tree branches dancing a dervish, or the way a ray of light fell across my face in warmth or rippled like waves across the lawn at a certain time of day. Underneath it all was a subtle vibration that pulled and played at the edges of my being. It was the quiet heart of life that plays out around us, beneath us, above us lost in choral display blending in unison.

Silence is never so alive, as in those moments of quiet contemplation and introspective glances of one self. For only when you quiet the noise in your head, will you hear what the heart is saying.

Quiet echoes of life strumming amidst the silence - that is my inspiration, my reminders to live at life’s pace and not rush this wondrous experience of breathing and just plain being alive.

Maybe I understood what Krista was asking of me, more than I let on. The mystery lay in that it was something that I embrace and live with every moment of my waking days and nights. May you find your inspiration in the every day as well. Just quiet your mind, listen…your heart is speaking. - Indigo