While it may be difficult for many of you to believe, I feel a deep calling to just go quiet for a while.
For someone who has spoken professionally for over twenty-five years I want more than almost anything to simply not talk. At all. To anyone.
And…
I scanned what I have blogged about since going into this time of distancing. I followed and felt the patterns. A lot of words, much of it in response to world events. It is part of how I process life. How I move energy through my system. I go into the feelings, curiously. I explore. I surf the energy. I claim and I allow the experience of it. And then I take that energy and I put it into words. I let the energy speak. I feel less like I am using words and more like I am allowing the words to flow as me. To use me. To use this platform in order to become heard, known, recognized.
And the process has been slowing. The words have more and more space between them. That space feels much more precious than the words that do come forth. The call to quiet is stronger than the need to speak. Or write. Or outwardly express.
I recognize that those of you who listen to me on Sunday will find this incredibly hard to believe.
Beyond anyone else’s belief there is a quiet in me that is calling to be attended to.
I need to feel deeply into all that this year has presented. I need to lean into it, preverbally. Non-descriptively. Energetically. Without forming that energy into words. I need to face head on all of the loss that has occurred and continues to occur. I need to have enough quietude to determine my own individual response to all of this. I need the space to say goodbye to what I thought life was and how it was going to be. What I thought was true and real in my country, in many of my relationships, in how I imagined this year would unfold. In what I perceived were my highest priorities. In what I perceived were your highest priorities. I need to settle into the tension between my values and the opposing values in people I care about. I need to breathe more deeply with that. Relax with it. Intentionally yawn and stretch with it.
I need the time and space to let the hope that I know is still there simmer up to the surface again. The constant chaos and noise make it feel at times far away. Remote. The commentary submerges it. My own commentary. My own narrative. Even if that narrative is affirmative. It remains noise.
I need to go quiet.
So, my current responsibilities include using words as tools to inspire and empower. I am currently and even contractually called to do that. I honor my commitments. And I equally honor this inner calling for more quiet. More spaciousness. More wordlessness. More presence. More intentional relatability. More times of rest. Of sabbath. Of true non-doing.
I exhale more fully as I type and feel these words. I am clear that they are invitations and not indictments. I say yes to the prompting. I know down deep in my body that this intuition is right and true. I need to give myself enough space to catch up with all that has occurred. The losses have been many. It has frequently taken my breath away. I need to sit, be still, feel it all, be with it all. In quiet. Breathe into the quiet.
I need to go quiet.
I will speak when I need to speak. I will say no to additional engagements which require more directed speech and energy. And I will trust the quiet that is calling to me. I know that calling is purposeful. I know it will be fruitful. I know it is intensely personal.
So, why share it publicly, using so many words?
Well, on the somewhat off chance that someone would notice that there is less chatter coming from Taylor. That my potential absence is in service of more presence.
And more than that, to encourage you to stop just long enough to see if perhaps quiet may be calling you as well. Distancing without distraction can be highly revelatory. Quiet just for the sake of quiet makes us privy to what is always simmering just below the surface. Overdoing is under-becoming. With all that we have collectively and individually been through this year we all need to stop when we can. Be still when we choose. Be quiet enough to come to a deeper knowing.
So, I have said enough. Perhaps I have said too much. I am okay with that. Because I have been authentic and real and intentional. And now I will be quiet. Until I need to use words and let words use me. They will come from a deep and quieter place. A place that has been intimately inhabited. A place that has been faced and embraced.
And now I will go quiet. Gratefully quiet
