Within the world of nature, there are observable rhythms — the order, laws, methods, and the Being that govern all life, including humankind. We can be unaware of them, misunderstand them, or ignore them. However, we can only pretend to act outside of them. In spite of flagrant denial, we are subject to them. We live in a great natural system; conciliation with these forces is necessary to our survival — individually and as a group.
In this natural system everything waxes and wanes, ebbs and flows, advances and retreats. Following that example, understanding that necessity, I am committed to establishing this rhythm in each hour, day, month, and year — in my businesses, my relationships, my home. It is an ongoing commitment, not easy to keep. But it is growing easier as more and more often the fruit of silence is the first hunger of my soul.
For this reason, several times a year I seek solitude in retreat. In this space I can be taught; I can observe the ways of nature, which are my nature. There I can more easily relinquish old ways and I can affirm my place and purpose in the balance of life. Immured in silence, free of distraction, I can commune most freely and fully with my own soul and the Soul of all that is. I retreat into this natural world to rest and recuperate physically, to renew my enthusiasm for life and my covenant with my Soul. At least once a year I require a lengthy period of silence. This has been a vital habit in my life.
Breaking Free
It’s two years since I have been able to manage more than four days of uninterrupted silence. The requirements of artist management, business development, and my personal life set a fast and often rigid pace. I am deeply fatigued and have a growing listlessness; I am ill more often. I feel worn, easily irritated, and almost desperate to get away.
The demands of a growing company make this very difficult but my team has worked hard to reach the point that allows me to step back. We have managed to carve time for me to have three weeks of silence. Their challenge is to get along without me entirely; my challenge is to let them.
I feel called from the depth of myself to learn even more how to bring the silence into all my actions. I sense a breakthrough is possible for me. I have become adept at moving from silence to action, action to silence — back and forth in a comfortable rhythm — but I have begun to sense that I can now learn to stay in the silence in all that I am — my work, my play, under stress, in everything. I hunger to explore this and it is my goal as I arrive at this small country retreat, a health and cleansing center in the rural Midwest, called the Raj.
The Lake at Noon
“You have a lovely room overlooking the lake,” they told me on my first day, but the lake is really a pond set in the huge lawn behind the health center. After lunch today I dash out to circumnavigate the lake a couple of times to aid in digesting my simple meal. The fall lawn is dry and tough under my bare feet. The top of my head grows warm in the sun and my hair, fresh from the shower that follows my spa treatment, gently begins to blow dry in the constant but gentle breeze. A swan circles the pond. I gather its feathers as I walk along the shore. Each day I find six or so good ones loosened during preening. My altar in my small room is afroth with my collection.
The pond is set about a foot down into the lawn and is ringed by a narrow mud beach, which I step down onto. The mud is thick between my toes, and cool. My feet make slurping noises as I walk along. The part of me that would prefer not to be messy admonishes me faintly but is soon overwhelmed by the unctuousness of it. Hundreds of little pieces of mud burst alive in flying hops ahead of me as I move forward. They are the many teeny tiny frogs that bask at the water’s edge. The size of pennies and the color of earth, they are very difficult to see when still.
Today, a larger frog startles me by flying off the bank, shooting across in front of me into the water with a big ploink. The frog is out of sight in the opaque water. I sit down immediately on the bank, waiting to satisfy my curiosity about how long frogs can stay underwater. Four minutes later it surfaces near my feet and skittles off far behind me in the shallows.
I know where a gigantesque old frog spends his days in the sun. He has requisitioned a fish hole and sits, stoic, over-lording, half immersed in water. When I disturb him today, he jumps far out into the water. I wait to see if he stays under as long as the other frog. Four minutes pass and four more before I catch him at his breathing trick — off to my right, frog lips break the surface of the water, suck air, and disappear, creating barely discernible ripples. He’s crafty, which must account for how he has lived to such a grand ol’ age.
A favorite part of pond walking is the many little butterflies that prefer the moist earth by the water. They light and bask in the sun in groupings of a dozen or so. Maybe they nibble the wet earth. Why do they swarm along here? Mostly they are yellow but some are white, and there are others that are a lovely pale violet. Sometimes they land on me. Above, on the bank, are larger butterflies in orange and brown — monarchs. There are also mini-dragonflies in vibrant neon blue-violet, darting about in their omnidirectional manner. Dragonflies and butterflies remain favorites: they seem magical, and often mark times of spiritual transition in my life, times like these three weeks.
Here at the pond, walking through hundreds of hopping froggies, swirling bitsy butterflies, and teensy dragonflies, I am giddy with the pulse, the Being, of life. All of nature is so glorifying of that One in whom we live and share our Being. In all of life it seems that only humanity separates itself from that quiet glorification.
But I have paused too long counting frog breaths and I am late for my sound therapy so I hurry, guilty, like a child late from recess. I wash my feet in the hose I have discovered at the side of the building, and rush to my room with the swan feather bouquet I have gathered. Placing my earphones on my head, I dial the number for the sounds and settle back on the bed to the murmur of men from India chanting syllables in Sanskrit that are chosen for their healing and cleansing effect. My feet are still wet and swan feathers cover my belly.
The Lake at Dawn
Things are taking on faces. As I bundle up in my room for the chill morning walk, I could swear that the rose on my altar has a face. It captures me with its grace and the subtle sound of its vivid color. Fresh from the deep silence that informs my meditations here, this rose seems to sing to me. And its song moves me to tears that catch at my breath and drip onto my sweatpants as I pull my legs into them. I wipe my face on my shirt as I pull it on, and head out to herald the day.
I don’t have much interest in the pond at dawn today. I want to rush headlong into the woods. I take the high road first; it affords a view of the sunrise. The dew is so cold on my bare feet that my legs ache already. My breath puffs out in front of me. Fall is such exultation. Moving toward the sun, I flush a pheasant. I grin and gather the little swirl of feathers he leaves in his hurry. I’m hurrying too. The sky is now palest rose. I want to get down the hill, through the blue wildflowers, and up on the other side of the meadow because there is a wonder there, if I am in time to witness the first sun rays as they hit the slope.
It is the spider fields! On the distant hillcrest, from the intensely pink point where the sun is now rising, beams of light spin out and illuminate the dew that clings to hundreds of huge circular spider webs that are attached to the grasses on the incline of both sides of the path. Everywhere there are glittering webs of bright shining glory that dance and sparkle on the morning breeze. In the center of each one is a very large spider, broad belly to the sun! What a sight! I will miss it when I leave. I will remember it. I laugh aloud and stamp out a little dance on the path.
I have been too noisy and I hear the deer flee; they were grazing tentatively nearby. Never mind, I will have another chance to sneak up on them on the low road that leaves the fields and goes deeper into the woods. The owl is there too. The one that I saw my first night here, in a dream. “He is wise who sees action in inaction and inaction in action,” the dream voice had said.
On my walk the next morning the owl rose — as it had in my dream — from a huge hollow stump that, though dead, had a young sapling springing from it. I came up out of the dim morning woods and paused, breathless and squinting, before heading across the bright clearing. We startled one another and my soul seemed to go aloft with it as it lifted up into the morning light.
I have learned this in my time here: in the depth of Being is the still point that ripens the fruit of action with its inaction, its stillness. When anchored in it, one can be both still and active — productive from that place. The stillness informs and integrates all, even creating all action. Without the stillness we move into action prematurely, ineffectively, and with much higher cost of our resources.
Days 11, 12, New York City
The only way I could get three weeks away was to interrupt it with a two-day business trip. It gives me a chance to see how the peace can be deeply retained in the whirl of management. So I’m up at 4:30 A.M. to catch a small five-seat airplane, heading for a connecting flight to New York. Jewel is taping a Christmas special for PBS and I’m joining her to handle management details. On this trip I will also sing with Jewel in her TV performance — several songs that I perform with her on the Christmas album.
From the silence of my retreat I reenter the maelstrom that is my life. The day grows long with meetings that are back-to-back without break. I interface with the record label regarding her Christmas album release and with the publishing company about holiday promotion of her poetry book, A Night Without Armor. I work out a dispute over song credits with a manager and artist, then meet with the editor of Vogue magazine. After these, phone calls about legal matters and contracts, the unrelenting challenge of setting schedules, and many faxes and e-mails cram the day.
By evening we are in a flurry of hair, makeup, and wardrobe and then we are ushered into the soundstage for the taping. Jewel stands at her microphone and I am seated in the front of the audience. She is somewhat unfamiliar with the song arrangements, having done only a few takes of each when recording the album some months earlier. This is her first performance of them. The verses of the holiday music roll in front of her on the monitor. It is certainly not her preferred way to perform, but all goes well. When I join her to sing I feel the deep calm of my time in retreat blended in the tones of my voice.
At midnight, Jewel and I are going over a list of decisions that require her input. That is followed, for me, by a meeting with Ron Shapiro, executive vice president and general manager of Atlantic Records. We grind through the myriad details that precede the press tour and release of her holiday album, Joy. By 2:30 A.M. I am finally in bed only to be in a car two-and-a-half hours later headed for the airport. Yet throughout the entire period I feel the humming in my cells, the humming of silence sustaining my energy and interactions; I am elated at seeing what I have learned to hold. And I’m so glad to be able to retreat again and move even deeper into the undiluted Spirit in nature and to integrate stillness more and more into my process.
Eleven Days: The Lake When I’m Gone
I find that the swan, each time I squat down and dip my head to the ground and then stand, will mirror me by dipping its head to the water, drinking and then extending its lengthy neck, bill stretched to the sky. I spend a lot of hours watching it and I’m getting a feel for swanness. It’s just fine to be a swan, I’d say. What odd noises it makes, less bird than mammal. It growls, for instance, and it rumbles. I’m particularly happy with how fastidious it is because each time it preens, I get another fistful of feathers. I collect them a couple of times a day and it’s fun to see what sizes I’ll get. They are quite small with a fair share of four-inchers, some six, and occasionally a little over that. I’m hoping for a couple of long ones before I go, but it’s not the time of year when a swan wants to part with tail or wing feathers.
At night there is something that glows in the mud around the edge of the pond. These very small beads of phosphorescence, like single eyes, scatter along the shore. They wax and wane like breath, on the bank, blinking on and off. From my perch I poke them with a twig but they don’t move. I’ve puzzled long moments during the day, trying to see what it is that glows at night, but I’m still wondering. I like to sit on the edge with my feet in the mud whenever I don’t feel too well from the cleansing routine I’m here for. The cool clay pulls all the aches right out of me. There are lots of critter tracks at the water’s edge. Raccoon. Possum? Definitely deer. And muskrat.
I walk at sunset each day. Nearly three weeks have passed, and the moon is almost full. Now I stand between the rising moon and the setting sun, watching the moon grow less faded as the sky turns red. The sun sinks, transferring its light to the moon, which grows more yellow and distinct. The wisps of cloud that edge it reflect the pink in the sky. The tree I stand under becomes a butterfly tree — it is full of monarch butterflies. So here I am looking back and forth between the dipping sun and the full moon with hundreds of orange-winged monarchs swirling around me. The air is an incandescent realm of flame. Deep, shining joy.
Full moon early this morning. I’m up at 3:30 A.M., taking my bundle from the altar. Swan feathers swirl to the floor. I go out into the moonlit morning. The stars are dim because the moon is so bright. With blanket and pillow I make my way up the hill toward the butterfly tree in the cold dark. The sibilant wind can’t pierce me as I sit wrapped to my nose in bedding. I light a candle and enter into ceremony to renew my covenant with the Divine. The wind talks in the leaves, light floods me, the love of pure Being streams down my face. I am that I am. I sleep a few hours until dawn under the fading radiance of moon and stars.
Early evening I take a last turn around the lake. After a time I notice that the swan is persistently swimming back and forth between me and a spot on the far shore. Puzzled, I circle back to the place where the swan waits and find there a delightful gift! Three full-length swan feathers, white and perfect, are tucked into a crevice. I bow to the swan and it dips its head to the water then glides away. I say a prayer of thanks to all the inhabitants of this place — the animals, the wind and sun, the forest and field spirits, all that exult here. With my prayer I express my heartfelt gratitude for the gifts received and I affirm my commitment to stewardship of the earth by leaving an offering of cornmeal and a macaw feather given to me on a recent visit with indigenous peoples in the Amazon region of Peru.
In my weeks here, fall has grown more persistent. The tiny dragonflies are gone, most of the little yellow butterflies, too, and there aren’t many of the penny frogs that hop ahead of me in the mud. The leaves are turning; the insistent wind carries them away nearly as soon as they change color. It seems I’m leaving with everything else. My room is emptied into my bags, except for the carnation and the rose, in their vase on my altar. They have lasted noticeably long.
I recall the question posed by philosophers: Does a tree falling in the forest make a sound if no one is there to hear it? Man has such a winsome and youthful arrogance. The question, really, is without bearing: for the pond and the woods, in all their distilled rapture, will continue their muffled witness, unceasingly, when I am gone.
Into the Fray
The next morning I leave for an international conference where I am to speak and sing. Five hundred world leaders have come together to exchange ideas and resources. The press of agendas and networking is furious. The variety of events, of thoughts, cultures, and needs is not possible to assimilate. The demands for my attention and resources are overwhelming. Hotel food is a challenge after the simple fare of my cleanse. The din and roar of the conference rise over the three days. It is a good experience but it is far from the cry of the silence of the pond and forest. I am literally reeling in my attempt to make the transition, to hold my awareness of the quiet core. I do not want to shift out of the still point; I want to walk through this world marketplace in the peace I know is possible.
I develop vertigo as my body is suddenly bombarded with stimuli; it is a struggle even to stand. I wonder how I will speak and, especially, how I will sing from the place of spirit as I have been invited here to do. I gather all my resources to reconcile the action with the inaction, to find the stillness in all of this. I succeed in part and, helped onto the stage, I stand with only a slight waver, speak briefly, and sing. In the song, as I move into Spirit, I come closer to the alignment I desire. Music, like prayer and stillness, is a swift vehicle into Being.
After two days at home I am still wobbly and dizzy, though greatly improved. I glimpse the potential and the process. Now I must leave for New York, where I join Jewel at Net Aid (Netaid.org) — a global multimedia humanitarian event — to debut our humanitarian endeavor, Clearwater Project. The travel is a challenge as I stagger my way through airports and hotels.
As I struggle to find what brings the balance, however, I realize what has occurred: On my retreat I achieved still point at a profound level. This stop-action in myself is what I desired to achieve and to hold. By comparison, the active world seems to be spinning wildly. Slowly I see that it is not necessary to rev up to match the outer world pace. The speed and spinning are perception — more like an illusion or mirage. I will myself to completely comprehend. I experiment with time, space, and movement to find an internal pace that allows me to be deeply grounded and still as I rush about in limousines, meet celebrities, talk with the record company, production people, and the press.
Standing backstage, the energy and sound of seventy thousand people greets the performers in a great roar. The music begins to pulse deafeningly from the speakers near me. For some reason, in this unlikely moment, my careening world rights itself, mutes, elevates. All the layers focus and peace becomes the fabric that my existence filters through. I know a rock-solid pervading calm, and I know that when I lose it I can find my way back as I continue in the practice of stabilizing and fully integrating it into my daily life.
Time spent in nature, in silence, prayer, meditation, or entranced by music, poetry, yoga, even exercise, or the many other things that take us into and beyond our individual selves gives us familiarity with the stillness that is a necessary element of life. That still point is not accessed only in full retreat, however. It can be accessed in every moment — during feelings of fear or anger, under duress, in chaos and calamity. We can drop out of the rush and the staggering pace, the smothering lack of time, by accessing and remembering the still place that is the true center of our movement in the world. Constantly reminding ourselves to slow, to breathe, to pause, to pace, breaking the circuit by adding space. This shifts us into a far more manageable dimension. It is a dimension immeasurably more provident and rewarding, and one where far, far more, not less, is accomplished.