Stillness and Beauty

Finally having the discipline of going to bed ‘early’ (before 11pm), I mange to rise early this morning, around 6am, and wander upstairs to the roof to ensure that I don't flop back into bed again.  This rooftop is my little haven, a place removed from the staccato rhythms of the sharehouse living below (and most importantly away from the numbing television with its gapless noise).  Up there, the expanse of the open sky meets the crest of the world, and I humbly cling to the interface, my roles in life collapsing down to an anonymous, conscious appreciator of the world's beauty. 


After some brief meditations I open my eyes to the morning light, which is clearing and distilling itself through the haze as it inches further into the sky.  I turn my head and a flash of movement catches my eye - I glimpse a brilliant green parrot clinging expertly to a gently swaying coconut bough.  A smile drifts up from somewhere inside me, a rising bubble to the water's skin which bursts into flower on my face.  Walking a few paces towards the sun I hear the peeling laughter of children, a glance down reveals a school yard with playing kids, the lightness of their footsteps and the ripple of their voices brings back flashes of carefree memories.  Yet I am here, in the present, the warming air drifting over my face, whispering secrets to my skin.  I turn my gaze from the children and it comes to rest upon some wiry plant that has garnered a precarious foothold on the underside of the concrete roof just near its edge.  The hardy explorer has put out dozens of slender arms, each holding a dessicated star-flower.  They hang sprawled through the air, a Medusa's nest of minute and elegant proportions.   

Beauty is everywhere. We spend most of our lives running between persons and places, places and persons, our footfalls too quick to gather the moss of the world.  A moment's stillness - in mind and body - is all it takes to for the quiet beauty that is all around us to reveal itself,  our silent lover whose caresses are always but a breath away.