This morning, I felt an earthquake.
That’s not a metaphor for a lofty spiritual experience—there was an actual earthquake in our area. I live in an old building that shakes when heavy trucks go by, and that’s what I thought this was at first. Then I heard rumbling, and the building was swaying. I knew this was an earthquake, and knowing didn’t give any sense of calm or of understanding what to do. I stood there, feeling it all, normal life suspended.
What an interesting time to be writing about Pratyahara, Yoga’s suggestion of quiet time for the senses.
Again, it would be easy—way too easy, in my writer’s book—to use an earthquake as some sort of metaphor. But ugh. If I did that, I don’t know how I’d be able to look at myself in the mirror. Thank goodness I have some awareness about the kind of writing I want to do, and the kind of person I want to be.
I think the reason I have some awareness around this is because people have told me about the necessity to slow down, even to stop, and to go inward. My Yoga teachers taught me about Pratyahara, the physical version of creating quiet time for the senses. You get to a quiet place, or you put soft earplugs or gentle fingertips in your ears; you close your eyes; you sit and relax. (Needless to say, the phone is not invited.) This is a way of giving the senses, which can get overstimulated, a break.
There are different variations on this idea of having quiet time. Some of my friends take one day a week to do nothing. They may not lay about the whole day, but they don’t fill the day. Another friend gets up an hour earlier than necessary every morning so she can have quiet time before her busy workday begins.
Why the importance of quiet time? Aren’t we busy, and shouldn’t we be filling each precious day with as much as we can get done?
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