Who Are Your Quiet Teachers?

We don't have to be loud to be heard

I’m working on a heavy piece. It’s one of those writing endeavors you start because it’s been kicking around in your head so long that you need to shake it out and get it out of your body. But once you start writing your way through it you feel overwhelmed. So, you keep placing it back down. Because you see all of yourself spilled out in front of you, on the page, and you can only look at yourself like that in doses. Does this track with anyone?

I’m here today, instead, to show up small. Quieter.

With just a little ditty.

Because while I was perusing on Notes the other day, I stopped at this one from

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It made me realize that showing up here weekly and regularly does not mean that I need to spit out heavy or deep or long formatted content week after week.

So, here’s what I lay before you today.

I’ve been looking for quiet teachers. By quiet I mean the ordinary marvels that I find as I wander through my day. The things that could otherwise remain hidden because they don’t leap out at me. And by teachers, I mean the creatures or inanimate objects that give me pause and jolt my mind with a spark plug of an idea.

This idea came to me after reading a daily offering from Mark Nepo¹:

The soil of life in which we grow speaks a different language than we are taught in school. In actuality, truth and love and the spirit of eternity are rarely foreseeable, and clarity of being seldom comes through words.

Quiet teachers are everywhere. When we think we are in charge, their lessons dissolve as accidents or coincidence. But when brave enough to listen, the glass that breaks across the room is offering us direction that can only be heard in the roots of how we think and feel.

I know what Mark is getting at. It’s a message or lesson we seek (a clarity of being) that often can’t be delivered to us from another person. It comes from nature. Or the Universe. Something is placed in front of us that cements a breakthrough or gives us a simple pause we didn’t even know we needed.

Now, whenever I see something or hear something faint that pulls me out of my rat race mind and slows my roll, I pause and quietly whisper “teacher”. I’ve spent the last week capturing each lesson placed at my feet. You know what they say, when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

LEAF TEACHER: The light wants to shine through. Stay still and it will.

DOG TEACHER: Even when you don’t know what’s up ahead, trust that the path is yours to take

TREE TEACHER: Sometimes our dark parts slice right through us, but we still stand tall

SKY TEACHER: Our thoughts are meant to shape shift and drift

HYDRANGEA TEACHER: Stay bold even when those around you insist it is time to dim your light

MUSHROOM TEACHERS: Community is how we grow.

MUSHROOM TEACHER: We are all capable of blooming wide open like a flower

FEATHER TEACHER: We leave parts of ourselves behind so others can see we were once here

NATURE TEACHER: We may look different but we’re all from the same vine

SNAIL TEACHER: Give yourself permission to climb slowly

ROCK TEACHER: Even in the rubble of life, there is always heart shaped love.

I invite you to turn down the static in your mind and clear space for these quiet teachers. Their lessons everywhere.  And they want to teach us a thing or two.

I WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU:

~Have you ever experienced a lesson that had no words? Delivered to you from nature’s classroom?

~How do you quiet things down when your brain gets noisy? The best way I know is to go outside and move.

If this is your first time visiting DARE TO BE DRY, hello! I’m so happy to have you here. I invite you to explore below to learn a little bit more about me and find links to some of my earlier essays that connected with readers:

DARE TO BE DRY is sobriety focused. But you don’t have to have ever had a problematic tango with alcohol to be here and feel resonance. This is the space where I get curious and invite whatever parts of me want to step up that day. For decades I spent so much time and energy doing. Writing reminds me of the importance of simply being. It slows me down. I’ve learned I don’t like the pace in the fast lane.

• My “hero post” explaining what my heart wants from this space and what it DARES TO BE

• Two of my most vulnerable essays letting you know I Was That Kind of Drinker and what I realized when I hit 1,000 days of sobriety

• I love writing about parenting - it stirs up so much. Here is a trifecta of inspiration from my kids: Preparing to Launch and Trusting the Mother in Me and What My Daughter and March Madness are Teaching Me About Being a Woman
  

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1. The Book of Awakening