Paradise Found
Page22DebbieKemmerer
JustBreathe
Page24PhotobyBurtonStehly
2TracksfromtheCatwalk
RokoDjokovicisamusician,producer,multiinstrumentalistandcomposerinmultiplegenres.We recommendyouplaythepiecehesubmitted while enjoyingthiseditiononstillness.Heperformsand composesmusicwhilemanaginghisrecordingstudioin Tulum,Mexico.He’llreturntoNewYorkthisyear.
MeditationRelaxationMusic
CLICKHERE
BurtonStehlyisaformersingerinatouringband,poet, songwriter,storyslammer,photographer,author,spoken word,radiohostof11 HourRadioWMUHandtraveling spokenwordhumorist. th
stillness is not passivity. It is the boundary that allows signal to appear withoutdistortion.
Cold Duck
I can name a dozen reasons why fowl don’t freeze in water when the temperatures are below zero. Bony legs with little soft tissue, a gland at the base of their spine which excretes oil to coat their feathers creating a dome of comfort by trapping warm air in their embrace. Nonetheless, it shocks me when I’m bundled up head to toe in puffy coat and battery-powered socks in zero-degree weather, jumping up and down to keep my feet from getting frostbite and I come across a bunch of geese or ducks hanging out on a frozen pond. Sleeping even. From my human perspective, they should be freezing to death. And yet, they aren’t. They’re plenty comfortable obviously. It makes flexing my fingers inside my mittens feel like overreacting. But I’m not a duck. I don’t float. I have dense bones and my soft tissue freezes. In any event, I don’t have to hang out in frozen water to escape land predators. I have other problems.
We are not creatures born above our environment. We are beings who’ve grown from our surroundings: natural, cultural, ancestral. The narratives of who we are. You cannot be anything that your surroundings haven’t given you. The myth of the autonomous individual is exactly that, a myth. Believe otherwise and you’ll have a major disconnect between body, mind and soul. Then trouble most certainly ensues.
But that’s not to say people can’t change and adapt. Of course we can. Odds of survival and happiness are greater when we do. But you need to know what clay you’re made of first. Winter is the perfect time to reflect on who you are and where you come from. In winter we’re given the gift of stillness, a mandate to chill, literally, and take a moment.
Your worries are buried in ice. You can examine them in leisure. But you have no hope of releasing them until planetary conditions change to slush. Your triumphs, too. Buried in ice. Admire their shadowy beauty. But they can’t warm you encased as they are in frozen memory. In our third issue of Paradise Found, we invite you to be still and take stock of yourself and your surroundings. Reflect on what it means to be you, alive in this moment on your piece of earth. And celebrate the still beauty you find there.
Bathsheba Monk
In the mid 1920's, General Harry Trexler commissioned the leading landscape architect in the country to design parks for Allentown. While the Depression put those plans on hold, when Roosevelt's WPA went into effect in the early 1930's, Allentown was "shovel ready" with plans. Today, almost a hundred years later, our park system remains iconic.
Michael Molovinsky
When the World Goes to Sleep
When the world goes to sleep, as it certainly will and every bird and creature is perfectly still, my mind starts to wander to places unknown where every road glistens with small unturned stones.
I’m never quite sure where my consciousness takes me. The quiet keeps a cadence but will not dare wake me.
I never knew stillness could be so very loud, that a magical light could break through a dark cloud. And when that cloud opens as the storm makes it’s way, the raindrops dance freely, not knowing to stay.
It’s kind of confusing; language waiting to arrive.
As the rain collects in every empty spot, a force that’s quite alive
I turn the page from autumn to winter and wait for the cold
To settle into my bones and gift us with snow.
Flakes of myriad shapes, so unknown. No two are alike.
I study their pattern on the cold, frozen glass, like in a kaleidoscope, a new sight with every pass.
Like a child, I exhale and warm breath fills the pane.
A work of art soon be gone though I wish it would sustain.
I take a seat, an observer at a famous show Where patrons nod and commiserate which works stay and Which go.
It’s not long ‘til the snowflakes melt into a stream of regret, No faint hint of their shapes as they melt into a channel of wet. The sun makes its appearance and warms the frozen ground. Its brilliance blinds my gaze as I turn and wait for the landscape to speak but there is ne’er a sound.
The force of silence has not left, it remains all around.
- Linda J. Mancinelli
Those who cultivate stillness become load-bearing points in chaotic systems. They hold shape while motion reorganizes around them.
paradise
What is Paradise, I ask, and where can it be found? Is it someplace other than here on Earth? Or is it wherever I am on Earth if I’m contented, fulfilled, peaceful, and full of bliss? Is paradise a trillionbillion places, all in the minds of every human beholder that has ever lived and that will live? Might Paradise be a place of mind, a place of thought, a place of aspiration or imagination? Is Paradise stagnant, does Paradise evolve, can my Paradise be another person’s Hell? I believe that Paradise can be found, and has been found, throughout time and creation, that it permeates all that has ever been and ever will be.
I have found paradise as a boy in my mother’s arms, at a two-week overnight camp on a lake in Wisconsin, and on a high school cinder track running the mile relay with my friends.
Paradise came to me in form of C-Rations of beef and gravy, on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River working on a 4,000-yearold archaeological site, and sitting on top of a levee in Hannibal, Missouri, that I was the Project Manager for. The first time I laid eyes on my future wife my spirit was transported to Paradise, and I stayed there as we made a home together, raised a son, and saw him get married. Am I crazy to believe that I found Paradise in Tulum on the beach, at Yoga practice, or floating down a narrow channel through the mangroves. I found Paradise in Caye Caulker at sea and with new Belizan friends, enjoying the natural wonders of Yellowstone National Park, and surrounded by pine and aspens in the State of Montana. I always find Paradise when playing guitar and singing, especially with other people who help create the kind of Paradise place that happens through joy, bliss, and humbly sharing creative energy.
And then there is a Paradise to be found in helping and serving, giving and receiving, and sometimes by simply leaving things alone. When I open my eyes, mind, and heart I know that I have found Paradise throughout my life and believe that I will find it again tomorrow and the days after that. I have chosen to see and find the Paradise in my own life and not be distracted by the visions of Paradise espoused by others.
Now that I have found my Paradise, I will keep it alive and close.
Chip Smith
My stillness begins at the end of the day because my mornings start early. The first grandchild arrives at 6:20 a.m. I watch all four so the noise of my day begins before the sun with their boundless energy; joyful and loud. Alongside that, I’m caring for my sister-in-law. She’s homeless. So add the noise of responsibility, worry and compassion that continue throughout the day. Then there’s the noise of the world: politics, opinions, constant commentary. I’ve learned to turn it off. It steals my joy when I let it linger.
But at the end of the day, after the noise has settled, I run a hot bath. My body meets the heat of the water and something inside me loosens. Tangled nerves slowly start to unwind. I sink until the water reaches my neck, set my book aside and close my eyes. Gradually, my mind catches up with my body. And then it happens the stillness within. A deep, quiet peace settles over me as my thoughts release the minutiae, the anxieties and the accumulated tension of the day. What my nervous system has been holding onto finally lets go, carried away by warmth and silence. I breathe again.
Debbie Kemmerer
Stillness is oftenmisconstrued as absence; in fact, it represents a form of constraint.
