Words Whispered in the Stillness

Stumbled, not so unsurprisingly, upon the following lines in the bookstore the other day.

Of course, I bought the book, and have been reading and rereading these lines many times since. They come alive to me with greater fervor with each read, and resonate more deeply as I allow the quieting of my soul that enables true listening-and thus true hearing-to actually occur. Enjoying them again tonight, with window cracked allowing a slight breeze to enter my dimly lit room. With a small white candle aglow and light music (ala Pete Yorn, Damien Rice, and others) emanating from my blackberry, this moment feels right and good. Such moments are becoming more frequent, and less rare, although still as much a source of rest and blessing as when they were nearly unknown. As I step into these spaces, I realize that the whole of me is engaged and that is a powerful, powerful thing. It's not the me that masquerades itself as something it is not, but the real, core, Rebecca, unmasked, and open to the power of truth spoken through such times of sheer peace. Welcome; come enjoy this space with me. :)

Words move, music moves
Only in time; but that which is only living
Can only die. Words, after speech, reach
Into the silence. Only by the form, the pattern,
Can words or music reach
The stillness, as a Chinese jar still
Moves perpetually in its stillness.
Not the stillness of the violin, while the note lasts,
Not that only, but the co-existence,
Or say that the end precedes the beginning,
And the end and the beginning were always there
Before the beginning and after the end.
And all is always now. Words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
Will not stay still. Shrieking voices
Scolding, mocking, or merely chattering,
Always assail them. The Word in the desert
Is most attacked by voices of temptation,
The crying shadow in the funeral dance,
The loud lament of the disconsolate chimera.

The detail of the pattern is movement,
As in the figure of the ten stairs.
Desire itself is movement
Not in itself desirable;
Love is itself unmoving,
Only the cause and end of movement,
Timeless, and undesiring
Except in the aspect of time
Caught in the form of limitation
Between un-being and being.
Sudden in a shaft of sunlight
Even while the dust moves
There rises the hidden laughter
Of children in the foliage
Quick now, here, now, always—
Ridiculous the waste sad time
Stretching before and after.

-Excerpt from Burnt Norton, a poem by T.S. Eliot
found in his "Four Quartets"