Oh, how furiously we rush about. Busy enough that one might assume our lives depended on it.

I was chatting with a colleague, the other day. She isn’t the first to tell me, “I just don’t do well sitting around with nothing to do.”

Why is that? Why do we feel such discomfort when faced with being “in between” anything? Why this almighty rush from point A to point B, day in and day out?

I’ve felt it. God knows I have. And still do—sometimes, as though there’s a fire within.

Restlessness abounds.

But when I was sick with Chronic Fatigue, I was, for the most part, confined to my bed. I was chronically in between things. Chronically unable to live my heart’s desires. Chronically unable to busy myself. Chronically unable to partake in anything active.

So I found solace in teaching the world how to “be.”

I just found a poem I wrote during this time. Today, as I sit between things, feeling peaceful and excited one minute and up, down and sideways the next, I find this brings me a sense of calm and remembrance. A reminder that there is great magic to be found in the spaces in between.

As Dude, the turtle from Finding Nemo, said:

“When you get to the trench—swim through it—not over it.”

Iconic advice to remember when facing whatever the present moment brings us.

Here’s my poem—I hope it will bring you some peace and whip up the magic and memory you have in your own soul:

Deep
beneath the chatter of the world,
enveloped in a rich, pregnant silence,

Immutable power
winds its way through the spaces between.

You’ll know it, because you’ve felt it.
And you’ll know the discomfort between this and that.
When you’re feeling lost and fidgety:

Tune in.

I am your Ghost Writer.
I am your un-seen.
I am The Instigator,
The Presence in your being.

You are incandescent in your own blackened wasteland,
strewn with soot and chaff.

Bold as brass among the silverware.
Like broken shards of light upon the glass.

Discomfort is a hallowed bunion of pithiness and point.
Our most painful, unbearable bits, are the best way in.
If we’d only stop and sit.

Listen to the language of the heart:

Sit with it.

A vast and ancient wilderness.
Fierce as the seven seas
and tender as a mother’s arms.

Space is full of magic, power and light.
A vibrancy that lifts our stature, fills our bones.
A shortcut to delight.

Don’t rush into thoughts, but sit down in your soul.
Let your body do the talking.
Feel all the messages it brings.
Are they feelings of joy and peace, tingling and ease?
Or perhaps a sagging sorrow?

Frustration?
Hope for tomorrow?
Settling into confidence that holds your heart in place,
As though suspended from a force that’s far greater from within
Far greater than flesh and bone,
and far from commonplace.

You might feel:

I’m not quite here or there, but in between, somewhere.

I’ve got nothing or too much to do and no place to go.
Or something isn’t quite right in my soul.

You’ll have to sit and face the void.
Face your fidgeting, your fussing and your feelings.
Face the lot.

We’re so used to filling space,
that we lose the simplicity of each moment’s grace.
Confidence grows with awareness.
And that’s the magic within.
The power of presence,
herein, found
in the spaces in between.

–

Author: Catherine Simmons

Image: Rudra Boopathy/Wikimedia Commons

Editor: Nicole Cameron