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SERENITY Serenity: As Calm, As Clear Welcome back. For me, it has been a long fruitful time away. A busy time. A time for change and the start of new things. An enjoyable time. A warm and sunny summer. Not a slow time, not a peaceful time. Not an empty time. Yet all the activity has delivered me to a very clear and very spacious place within whose arms I am now cradled. Now is a serene time. A time clear from clouds. A feeling of relief sweeps over and through me. A blessing of spaciousness, relaxation, and clear mindedness. Now is a time when I can receive. Without the current emptiness, free from thought and tension, I do not believe I could look back and see the wonder that the summer held for me. Something of the beautiful flow from the crazy intensity of summer's pounding gate, leaves the essence of the past months as hues of powdered blue and easy green tones. Not cold colors, but not hard either. Something of the calm after the storm teaches me to see the storm for all its calming qualities as well. Sometimes when I've come through intensely filled periods such as the last four months have been, I can feel beaten up. You know the sensation. Everything hurts. You're exhausted, don't want to think, are drained of inspiration. But other times, trying periods like these can still turn up as good memories. We come through a storm, through big changes, through supercharged events, and we feel good about ourselves-aware of how the choices we made and the way in which we chose to carry things out made a difference in how we felt at the end of the day, at the end of the week, at the end of the summer. Some of my most treasured times were filled with loss, change, big decisions, and uncertainty. Other periods of my life that I hold dear to my heart were periods of great emptiness. Times of spaciousness, an easy rhythmic flow from one day to the next for weeks on end. Transitional times. That's what it is. That is what these both have in common. Be it transition by way of emptiness and waiting, or transition through activity and decision-making, something of the serene emerges in both. It is this quality of serenity that I am most drawn to. The quality of serenity that can be present in the calm before the storm, and after, as well the high voltage that we can experience when we are whipping around at its mercy. I turned to my Funk & Wagnalls for an insight into what it is about serenity that I find in the not so calm times. And I learned that within its Latin root, "serenus" also means clear. And that is when I recognized the common thread between the two phases that I experience-serene as calm, and serene as clear. In the midst of storm and change, and the relentless pulsation of life's sometimes too hard rhythms, vision of heart, mind and soul can still be clear. And in reflection, especially if we have survived and are triumphant, what remains in our bodies is where we were clear. And if enough of our self was clear, we can feel calm, not only in the aftermath, but in the memory of the fertile time itself. So in moving through this fall and winter season, stay true to your deepest knowing. Keep clear your vision of the uninterrupted skies above, and remember that even within the storm, calm serenity abounds. First published on SoulfulLiving.com - October 2003 © Copyright 2003 Karen Deborah Farris. |
