We can make our minds so like still water that beings gather about us to see their own images and so live for a moment with a clearer, perhaps even a fiercer life because of our silence. ~ William Butler Yeats
I love this quote. Ran across it in a Yoga Journal post entitled Surrendering to Silence (http://www.yogajournal.com/practice/907?utm_source=Wisdom&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=Wisdom), by Catherine Ingram.
Reminds me of a passage in one of Martin Prechtel’s tales of living in a Mayan village where he says that the human mind makes a grinding sound that animals can hear, so that when we’re out walking in nature, they hear us coming and move away from us.
Stilling the mind can be learned with practice. Then, nature approaches. Butterflies, birds, and other creatures no longer flee.
Some would say we have become a vehicle that allows the universe to know and appreciate itself.
The Well: bodymindheartspirit 
Great post! I really relate to the “grinding of the mind.” Following recent surgery, I began seriously meditating again after years of neglect. It took a couple of weeks to get back to the place I remember. And when I did, it was obvious. Suddenly, it was like everything stopped and I could HEAR so clearly. Where did that silence come from? Then I realized that the loud sound that was drowning out all others was coming from ME – that constant buzzing, grinding, roar. I was STILL for the first time in ages – not on the outside, on the inside. I was excited but worried that I couldn’t do it again, but with more practice, I can now do it within seconds. That familiar, still calm. And it has made a world of difference in my recovery.
I’m no longer on FaceBook, but I’ve bookmarked your blog and try to read it regularly. Oh! I see I can subscribe!
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Thank you for sharing your experience and for subscribing, LB. You are spot on: We make that grinding roar, and we can listen for what’s behind it. I imagine it will also influence your music.
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I forgot to include something that bears mentioning: When Martin Prechtel could walk through the jungle without his mind grinding away, a jaguar pissed on his foot. Prechtel instinctively reached down and in one fluid gesture plucked a whisker from the jaguar’s face. That jaguar’s whisker served as a totem for Prechtel’s life as a legendary shaman among the Maya. Read it in Secrets of the Talking Jaguar and the companion book, Long Life, Honey in the Heart.
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