Wordless Conversation :: 001

Photograph (c) 2009 deAnn Roe

The following series of posts titled, "Wordless Conversation" are my inner reflections while living a couple days, alone, in silence on a creative retreat.

Thursday, April 23, 2009
I have arrived.
Quietness invades my soul.
No Blackberry. No TV. No internet connection.
I am here. I am still.
Where it is silent. Where rest can occur.
Listening is the order of the moment.

Pine needles wave to me through the angular window near the sky. The air is chilly, yet the sun is warm. It’s a white light, “mountain sun shine” I called it as a child growing up in the Sierra’s of northern California. The white sunlight doesn’t just cast its glow on to the leaves; but instead, illuminates them, as if the leaves themselves are creating the light. It feels clean, fresh, this white sunlight. Bright and new, after two days of cleansing rain. Longing to be seen and felt – it knows we’ve missed it dearly, its sunny warmth on wind cooled skin. This is the first sunlight my winter complexion has seen.

I’m enjoying full bodied coffee being sipped from the coolest mug I’ve laid eyes on. Unique pottery pinched in three places on the bottom to form pedestals for the mug to rest upon. It’s worth drawing, although I’ve already taken photos of it.

The clicking of an unseen clock speaks to my ears. Time is ticking away but I don’t know where it’s going, nor do I care. The whirl of the ceiling fan over head, I barely feel the fruit of its troubling labor. The refrigerator is chugging away in the background, taking a respite every now and again. Alas, the wall heater growls, scaring the chilly air out of my cozy cottage. For a quick moment, all sing in competition with one another and the noise is unbearable.

Off in the distance, I hear the faint hum of a lawnmower or a weed whacker. No wait! It’s a bumble bee the size of a Blue Jay and its inside my cottage! In the kitchen by the window - I saw it – trying to escape. Not sure what to do, I grabbed a dish towel and swatted at it which caused it to fly into the living room, near the front door. Thankfully, I think the bee wanted out as much I wanted it out! So I opened the glass door and it quickly disappeared. I don’t know where it came from but I hope it doesn’t decide to return.

Lord Jesus, what do you have for me here? As you told me in Israel, (and I have the photos on my screensaver right now to remind me of that experience), “move with God.” That is what I want to do here today and tomorrow. To move with You. Amen.


more to come...