Still Sundays Essay by Vince L. Wilson

July 29th.

Still Sundays.

Before I share Vince L. Wilson’s essay I would like just a few minutes of your time to express the following:

I woke up to write this Sunday morning not certain weather I would place the essay on this digital shelf. This is because I had reached out to a few people I know for guest essays. Just once a month on the last Sunday of the month. I wasn’t asking to “promote” them. I believed what they would offer would be of tremendous value to me and whoever comes by this Trial of Words. In this digital age of social media where every act is that for oneself (even when it is not) it can get very tiring to have to prove one’s intentions are otherwise; so I left all that noise a long time ago. Most of the folks I reached out to are not on social media per se. And most importantly these are people I trust. When I say trust I mean it in every sense of the word, I can challenge them without threatening them (and vice versa); I respect them to deliver writing as the craft it was—and is—for a reader who respects reading as a leisurely experience that gives value.

I was surprised by how many people want to experience stillness through another and yet not offer it themselves or even experience it for themselves.

Someone once told me, “I catch glimpses of stillness like fireflies.” I then thought how beautiful! But then it occurred to me what we do with fireflies: we try to catch them in a jar! It’s even encouraged when we are growing up! stillness (and definitely not Stillness) can’t be patented, placed in a jar, offered like a formulaic pill. It demands effort until we feel that it is ease and the hard work is our un-conditioning.  It’s very vulnerable when we come to write in or create from this space of stillness and yet Stillness takes no prisoners and there is no place for sensational, “new-age” jargon that sounds right to the mind but doesn’t feel right. In the highest experience it simply can’t even be put into words.

When I sent out the request, via phone or email, this is what I said:

There is no subject on which you have to write. You are not writing ABOUT stillness. You are experiencing stillness AS you write. The more you write from that place the more you will see, as I have over time, that there is stillness and Stillness. Stillness connects things, makes things come together, it is like a bunch of invisible elves working behind the scenes and all it asks is that you bring yourself to stillness.

When we begin in stillness, often the first things we can’t help writing about are our surroundings, wherever they are, immediate room or city or town. I wrote about New York City for two years before I could just naturally “skip” that aspect other than offering a sentence or two as compelled by stillness.

Most importantly, nothing is forced. The metaphors are what they are. The similes are cracked. They only make sense to you and you hope they do to another too. You are not writing for another, you are not writing for yourself either.

These are not essays of or on meditation either. Here are some thoughts by other great essayists on essay writing as art form, a craft: […]

Just when I was done with my essay I received an email from a good friend who goes by Vince L. Wilson that he had written in stillness and I am free to edit it.

I was very moved. I didn’t have to read past the first paragraph to know if the writer was familiar with stillness or had encountered Stillness. I expressed my gratitude, wiped a tear, and wrote, “This is Art. Thank you for humbling, empowering, and offering proof that what I offer so can another if they only let go of the performance. This  takes practice given we have been conditioned to perform for so long.”

I thank you for reading this essay by Vince L. Wilson. I hope you will enjoy it a much as I did. I can’t guarantee a guest essay each month given I don’t know what happens in stillness until you are in it. All I know is that we always know what’s real in stillness.

I have crossed some threshold that I didn’t even know existed.

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July 29, 2012.

Still Sundays.

Essay by Vince L. Wilson.

Today is a break. I spend my working days with people whose madness I have to tolerate without absorbing. I spend my leisure time expressing myself: on a proverbial stage or a literal one. I spend until I am spent. Once I have given everything there is to express, I must rejuvenate. Perhaps this is life’s Circadian rhythm. Today, I am tucked away in my messy apartment with a chartreuse blanket tossed over my feet, gathering all that I am in the deepest part of the hollow of my palm. I collect the scraps of my mind and mold them together—as a pinch of wasabi. I give away pieces of me: just enough to imbue a world of flavor.

My apartment represents my brain. I accept this. My brain functions at a high level, concerning itself with multiple things simultaneously. I accept this, too. There are piles of clothes with different destinations, casualties of the comings and goings of the week; a row or two of DVDs that could stand to be a bit more organized for my taste, perhaps by genre and not just alphabetically; a stack of sheet music that wants to be sorted and incorporated into my repertoire; books that I still have not read. The window is open to let some real life pass through.

One poetic exercise simply asks the writer to describe things in the immediate vicinity, not simply for a list-making purpose, but to hone the power of observation. How many thing do we ignore in life? How long have we been trained to let things run across our six senses? I am not convinced that everything is poetic, but the process of observing is the poetry. Everything in your environment connects with your energy. Everything is information and, ultimately, identity. Being in a garage does not make you a car, but it will connect you with a car’s habitat, so to speak. Experiencing environment is a process that makes everything in the energy sphere one organism.

Today is an exercise in existing in this chaos, not being ashamed of my mess. Today is a ceremony in which I can rejoice about my humanity. I, too, can be and should be human, to balance the time when I insist on perfection. Nothing will be perfectly in place today, as I see it. It will be where it wants to be. I usually arrange everything just so. I count things when I am bored. I check everything for order and propriety–not obsessively, but just as an exercise.

Once you become aware, you cannot become unaware, although we try to numb ourselves with vices. People who develop blindness after birth still remember color.

But it is warm. This apartment is warm and cozy. My toddler of a houseplant does not want for water. My grandfather gave it to me from his living room jungle and I honor his gift by watering it, talking to it, dusting it and feeding it all the light it needs. Accents of red everywhere pop up in my apartment like bruises that wait for a soothing finger. Things want to be touched. Masks and paintings and framed sheets of Tibetan parchment cover anywhere that has too much white space. This apartment makes sense of its own madness. It laughs at itself. My apartment has a good sense of humor. Each time the wind separates the curtains, muted light jaywalks diagonally across the room in no rush to reach the other corner. Nothing is coming but a wisp of incense. Maybe some music later if this quietude wants a soundtrack. As for right now, the air wants room to stretch. There is no rush. This is a silent film.

In this moment, I sit with myself and consider the thoughts I choose to believe. Who am I outside of poetry and jazz and friendship and perpetual busyness? (Maybe not much—I am fine with that.) Am I finally more than my failures? Will I attain all the greatness that has been spoken into my existence? Why do I collect clothing the way I curate experiences and people? (I have been the same size since high school, but my taste in all of the aforementioned have intensified.) What and who must I release in order to give destiny a firm handshake?

How many ways can I love, express love without expectation, and see love in other people? I believe that love is the only power that connects us to any higher consciousness. In fact, love is the higher consciousness. Love is not ours to withhold. Who, in my life, needs a powerful dose of healing love? Who is on the ledge that I can grab? Love equalizes and affirms. There is so much despair and disrepair because love is being withheld, and people are disallowed to love themselves.

Yesterday, I asked someone directly, “Why did Life send you back to me? What do you want? What do you want from me?” People want direct questions, and I want direct answers. At this stage of my life, anyone who wants to be tossed back into the fold must have a direct intention, and I must see the function of having this energy anywhere near my core.

Thoughts slow down to smile and stare me in the face. There are no assumptions in stillness. Nothing is a given. Solitude is merely the temperature, not the weather. Who I am drizzles. Maybe it hangs thick as humidity, the ambiance of heat.

When I sit with myself, everything I see and hear is a reflection of me, as if I exist in a world of my Self and my understanding. It is only in this place of being gently hyper-aware do I gain existence. I should not sing another song or write another poem without some real, resonant information. If I have squeezed myself dry, I will have nothing to express. The spotlight is a magnifying glass.

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