by Searles O'Dubhain

The winter solstice, that still moment when the sun pauses before returning, is the external image of an inner practice that Searles O'Dubhain calls "the still-point." In this December 2004 post to alt.religion.druid, he argues for a daily period of silence as the anchor of all spiritual life — drawing on Pythagoras, Jesus, and the Buddha to show that solitude and inner quiet are not optional for the spiritually serious, but the essential condition for wisdom. The meditation extends into a brief cosmological reflection on the triune structure of all things: beginning, middle, and end as the triple grammar of existence.

I think it's important to have a daily period when everything around you and inside of you is silent. This is the still-point that anchors everything else.

A thought or two struck me as I drove home. The main two are that a person should take some time each day to be alone without distractions. Pythagoras taught his students that one should take at least a few inner moments to get in order before getting out of bed in the mornings. After all, when we are asleep is when the body and mind attempt to heal themselves. If the lessons from our dreams and our own inner balance are restored before we face the world's onslaughts, so much the better.

Jesus spent time alone when he was considering problems of the world and while he was preparing for the work of his chosen path. The Buddha meditated on life and its illusions while sitting alone in inner silence much of the time. Being alone and seeking one's truth is an important part of preparing to face anything. An on-deck circle is not just for warming up the muscles and getting loose. It's also a place to see oneself achieving success through visualization and focus.

My other thought was that everything has three parts to it. These parts are a beginning, a middle, and an ending. A line is like this, but so is a circle, a sphere, and even a complex matrix of tensors. Those things that seem to exist apart from other things like a line are drawn or projected onto something else. Circles are merely lines whose beginnings and endings connect. Tensors and other more complex structures share this connection to themselves across time and space. Thoughts are like this as well. Their connections aren't so obvious, but they still exist, sometimes in one space-time and sometimes through several spaces and times. Birth, life, and death are like this, just like everything else.

Of course, one could say that there are things that exist without beginnings and endings. These might be said to have their beginnings and endings in their middle or central point. Ideas and spiritual entities seem to be like that. The moment something has existence is when it also has a beginning and a possible ending. If that moment is all of time and space, then truly the middle is a wondrous whole.

This time of year can be seen as a beginning while from other points of view it is also an ending. Point of view is the ruling factor. One must seek the many points of view to have perspective — unless one has found that "one thing." Even in oneness and wholeness there are countless possibilities.

So at this time of year, place, life and family, let me just say that each of us should take some time to find our beginning, middle, and ending in everything that we do, so that our spirits can continue in peace while we are within these present adventures that our minds and bodies have chosen for us.

Colophon

Written by Searles O'Dubhain and posted to alt.religion.druid in December 2004, around the winter solstice. O'Dubhain was a prolific Druidic teacher, operator of the website The Summerlands, and one of the central voices in early online Druidic community.

Preserved from the Usenet archive for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.

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