Sleep
A day with the Earth. No other voice.
And now, in the last hour, her presence grows stronger. Instead of fading into darkness, the Earth makes herself felt deep within me. In what meditation calls ‘the still centre’, the hollow just below the navel, I feel filled and fulfilled.
Earth’s stillness becomes my stillness. Her silence, my calm thought.
Natural as a mother’s young who nudge toward the safe place she creates, sleep will follow.
The above words write themselves, after I spend a day alone and never switch on the news in any sound form.
In the current pandemic, many of us have trouble finding sleep. Fear escalates and speeds away rest, bringing nightmares instead. It seems as though we can’t help it. Yet, after working in communications for many years, what I’ve found is that we can choose not to hear many of the voices who cause fear.
‘News’ is not the equivalent of truth, but something manufactured, designed to keep us as listeners, helpless in the face of what is presented as insurmountable. Radio and TV announcers are trained to put the kind of urgency and emphasis into their delivery which heightens our fear and dependence on them.
When I quit the communications business after fifteen years, the first thing I did was to cut myself off from TV and radio. What we hear has a direct line to the brain, one that I don’t want to offer to sources I have learned not to trust. The Internet has now shown that the advent of fake news even taints the word as text, with many news and social media feeds being heavily biased. More and more, silence becomes the cleanest option for sleep hygiene. If we need updates, local health announcements on email are more specific to our individual health and lack artificial drama. Even these, I allow to access my thoughts in a sparing and controlled way. For example, I avoid news reports at times when my sub-conscience is most vulnerable, such as when I first wake up, or in the hours leading to bedtime.
I’m not suggesting that we all bury our heads in the sand. But in our news-saturated time, most of us do the opposite: we let ourselves become defenseless in the presence of those who seek to profit by launching more and more fears into our psyche.
If there is only one message I can give to those who share this pandemic situation with me, it is: let’s be more selective about what allow into our minds. No one should rob us of the rest that renews.
We sit patiently and allow muddy thoughts to clear. Life then lives itself in us. –quote adapted by William Martin from the Tao te Ching
Nature's Path 