“Be still” has been the mantra of the day in more ways than one. As the morning posting suggested, it was to be my inner instruction. Little did I know that it would prove to be an accurate external one as well. After departing on time from Los Angeles, and arriving perhaps a few minutes early in Santa Barbara a couple of hours later, the latter part of that day has been marked by stillness on the track. Delay leaving San Luis Obispo; a freight train with priority here, a track repair crew there, and there, and there. Good practice in watching, listening, and simply, patiently “being.”
Which is to say that if we were corporately enduring stillness outside, I was slowing to embrace it within. Settling into a seat in the observation car mid-afternoon, I cursed myself for arriving without a book. I was alone, after all, and nothing to do but sit. Perverse! “Just be still,” whispered the Voice, and I was. More than a narrative or a thesis was beckoning me through the glass. Which is also to say that the books and the tasks have been less compelling today than the grace outside the window. On one side mountains; on the other, ocean with waves and beaches, splashing rocks and an occasional sea lion. Sometimes we were high on a bluff above, looking down on ground-covering succulents that carpeted the dunes; other times we seemed close enough to need a towel if we could have only opened the windows. Sometimes the route S-curved so tightly that the entire train was visible from engine to end.
It is darkness now, and we are moving – rapidly, by the sound of it, as if to make up time. And it is quiet apart from the rails. Quiet – inside and out.
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