Image and text copyrighted by Barry L. Lively

The marsh was beyond quiet, it was still.  It was not asleep, it was still, watchful.  Nothing moved.

If we could speed up our perception and look more closely at the intervals between what we think of as events, perhaps we could experience stillness there.  Possibly a “flavored” stillness which in some way reflects the most recent events.  But we are usually thinking about something in the past or anticipating something else in the future.   Appreciation of stillness means living in the Now.

Claude Debussy is credited with saying that “Music is the silence between the notes.”   Now that might also be “flavored” stillness, stillness in and of music.

I moved on.  We later walked back the same way and the heron was gone.  The surface of the water was ruffling in the breeze.