Winter Bison

Winter Bison

Wearing only a shaggy coat
He stands alone
Stark against the winter

Icicles hang from his beard
Breath clouds form then vanish
The icicles stay

Snow-laden trees bear witness
Head bowed
He is honoring the dead

Ingrid Kincaid, 2003

This is a poem written by a dear friend of mine and fellow expert here at Therapy in Transition. This was given to me to read and ponder by Ingrid after a beautiful Rune reading she gave me that basically said, "Stop and Be Still! Hold that space of stillness for yourself and your own personal growth."

It is funny to me to ponder what it means to STOP AND BE STILL. I am a formidable doer, and if I am not actually doing I am thinking of doing. I know I shouldn’t let the cat out of the bag, but it is so. I am hoping this will give you pause in reading this. (Get it? "Pause," as in "to be still for a moment."

The funny thing is I told another dear friend and fellow expert this and she said, "Rosemary, I have a present for you!" And when I got to her home she gave me a card: blank inside, no note or inscription, because the picture on the front said it all! It was a head-on picture of a buffalo frozen in the winter landscape of the plains, icicles hanging off its thick beautiful fur and looking frozen in time. All that was missing was the breath clouds. (I had not told this friend that Ingrid had given me a poem about a buffalo: this was all divine providence.)

I was once again struck by how everything in my life happens in right timing, and so I followed the call and immersed myself in practicing stillness. It took some time and practice, and it looks different for all of us—stillness that is. For me, some days it is stilling my mind, thoughts and the yammering of my ego. Then other days it is stopping saying "yes" to everything everyone asks me to do and instead doing only what I need to do. Some days it is sitting in meditation and allowing everything to dissolve, and other days it is actively participating in moving, breathing meditations.

Look around your life. How do you spin your wheels? Is it thoughts, actions, negative patterns? Is it an escape or an addiction? Look and be honest, then be still. You will find it to be an amazing exercise. (And I call it an exercise because we have to practice every day to become good at training the mind and body to BE STILL.)