"Tranquillity is here."

I haven't written anything meaningful in a long time. Most of my posts have had inconsequential bits of everything chucked together into a sloppy concoction of mostly verbiage. It's not a reassuring thought, because it makes me feel as if my brain is melting into a rubbery mass. I hope it isn't.

In my panic at that initial thought, I hauled the anthology's I possessed off of my shelf and spread them across my desk - pushing aside all of the other mundane artefacts (which included my current study material) - and ate them up hungrily with my eyes at first. It's a different feeling, to run your hands over a page of script you know so well. To feel the words jumping up to greet you, like an old friend, one that will never change, immortalised by print. It is wondrous to read a few lines, and conjure up a whole kaleidoscope of understanding - like interpreting words into colours, and shapes, and splendid and devastating images.

"Enough of Science and of Art;
Close up those barren leaves;
Come forth, and bring with you a heart
That watches and receives."

So, I closed my ears and opened my mind...and heard the world around me: crickets playing their own orchestra and the ocean crashing onto the shore; the sound of gushing water through the pipes in the walls; the hum of the a/c keeping the oppressive humidity at bay; the muted dialogue on the television through the glass of my closed bedroom door; my own breathing, barely perceptible; Milo, our resident owl, outside and hopefully, on the hunt; I could hear my own heartbeat if I really concentrated; silence. Silence weaving itself through it all. If you listen hard enough, you can always find the silence, even amid a cacophony.

It is a soothing exercise I find. It calms the mind, yet at the same time awakens it: Listening. In the beginning, it's like listening to various musicians tune their instruments (with varying levels of success), and then...as you let your senses take over, it blooms into a full out symphony. And even all those sounds that once irritated you, now seem beautiful.

We should try listening to our World more often. I think it deserves at least that much, and we might just find something marvellous while we're at it...