What a broken ankle can teach you… It can teach you acceptance. When magnet therapy, homeopathy, ayurvedic oils, bandages, hot-cold water, herbs, mantras, vitamins and hope tell you – it‟s going to be slow, you embrace patience. Doctors and physiotherapists smile and say “it will take time”. Action and effort seem to become weak agents. You have no choice. This is how it is. Accept – from within. It can teach you freedom. Freedom from notions of form. When I limp – bandage, brace and crutch, or climb a stair or hobble on the pavement slow and wary , people who‟ve seen me gliding and hopping give a sorry look. I hold myself back from laughing out loud. How silly! It‟s the fact that you are „different‟ that leads them to a sense of pity. Would they feel the same if everyone had a walking stick? What if instead of a crutch I had sprouted wings? An injured foot is not such a big a deal - a conditioned mind is! It can lead you to observe. Colours around you appear more vibrant. You notice the streak of orange next to the red. The loops of maroon and blue on your bedcover surprise you. The folds of the silken sofa cover, that has slipped too low. The fruit tray reveals it‟s aesthetic secrets, the freckled banana skin, the orange with its loose, thick, spongy, yellow and green skin, the apples shiny and variegated, too have personalities. The steel plates in the kitchen shine… Images jump out of life and into poetry. It can show you yourself. The space that motionlessness creates, brings what‟s hidden or forgotten to the surface. Now that you have the leisure, you start seeing the spaces in your heart – the irritation, sadness, longing. Memories crackle and light up in dark corners. Aspects of you that didn‟t seem to exist, arise, personality is pounded, thrashed, kneaded, brought out anew. New roads are seen – the past and the future mesh into the now. It can give you a glimpse of stillness. When you don‟t buzz around too much, the mind slips into silence almost naturally. A slice of sunshine tumbling through the window onto the floor… a simple pattern, and the world stops. Stillness. The blueness of the sky and the mind stops. Just blueness. The whirling of the fan, the cry of the child in the neighbourhood, the feel of the afternoon heat. That‟s all. No more, no mind. Stillness. Sharing what brokenness has brought forth… Love, Harvinder [email protected] Lessons in Stillness