Peace has been exiled from the setting of everyday life. Banished from the spectrum of readily accessible feeling states that we ordinarily experience.
In an overheated world that runs on the fumes of hyper arousal and stimulation, it lies outside the range of the sinewy, visceral things we feel. Like anger, regret and euphoria. Peace seems far better off as a pretty after-life concept, the prize at the end of the tunnel, a retirement plan or a collective human fantasy. Anything but a part of the emotional brick and mortar of daily life.
While its close peer, happiness, has been researched, measured, mystified and demystified, peace remains a slippery, elusive, wild thing. Whereas its close cohorts, passion and adventure, have been celebrated, lived out, obsessed over, taught in management schools and accepted as a legitimate scale to measure the success of work and relationships by, peace remains shrouded in the realm of strange, altered states. An esoteric creature that we associate with Zen monasteries and Gandhi, UN diplomacy and war treaties. Or the awkward character in trendy mindfulness retreats, New Age books and glossy articles on slow, luxurious living.
We have actively quested for peace, to be sure; tracked its movements like some endangered Himalayan snow leopard, tried to get at its physiological underpinnings and psychological whereabouts. But we haven’t gotten too far.
To circuitries habituated to the juicy adrenalin rush of anxiety, compulsion, thought spirals and loops, the deep, calming lull of peace can seem a bit out there, too out of touch with reality. Escapist, even.
To experience peace as a real, living, breathing state, we would have to be daring enough to reclaim it. Bring it back from whichever mountaintop it has been abandoned on, and invite it back into the emotional grind and storm of life. Plant its tranquil, serene notes into the colloquial jargon of everyday feelings – right next to rage, pleasure, pain and boredom.
To feel the resounding presence of peace in ourselves and our lives, we would have to stop thinking of it as a place of disconnection and absence; the sole preserve of Utopian civilisations, hermits and forest dwellers. And boldly infuse its lulling tones of stillness, silence and restfulness into our dense digital jungles of busyness, movement and connectivity.
Let’s take peace out of the photogenic picture frame that we’ve stuffed it in – the one with the sun bed on a beach in Hawaii with a cocktail on the side – and return it to its rightful place. In the middle of life, as it is. Peace sings the song of a deeper reality that we can sink into, wherever we happen to be and as we are, right now. In the middle of no-good days at work, panic, loneliness and testy inner landscapes with more landmines than a Central Asian war zone.
The art of attainable peacekeeping demands that we create spaces where we can bump into it on a regular basis, get to know its mysterious movements and contours, feel its breadth and depth and fall in love with it.
The place we are most likely to encounter peace is in the upside-down world of just-being, where it makes its home. A sort of mirror world of the wakeful, watchful, action-filled one that we inhabit – detached from the weight of expectations, rushing clocks and the wagging finger of yesterday, tomorrow and what could have been. A wide, empty patch that lies out of the reach of Excel sheets, mental lists, and real and imaginary schedules of places to be and stuff to do. A no-name space unmoved by the giant scales of validation, comparison, reward, censure and the cheering crowds of Instagram and Facebook .
In this deep ocean habitat, doing, striving and acquiring hold little water. The surroundings go a bit dark and fuzzy, as we feel our way around, grazing into soft, cool textures and gentle, rolling, sensations. Here, reality is coloured a little unusually, cloaked in the subtle language of colour, tone and light. Peace lingers in these vast, slow, undulating stretches and plateaus of stillness, space, in-breaths and out-breaths.
Strangely, the doorway to this drifting world cracks opens, not after an ayahuasca ceremony or some grand mind-bending expedition, but when we immerse ourselves in the relaxing, absorbing rhythms of the moment. When we experience the comfort of being fully present in whatever is: idle play, everyday chores or wiling away an ambition-free, criticism-free hour or two. Just-being blossoms in the simple acceptance of life as it, and by tapping into the secret beauty of ordinary things and experiences.
Like having a cup of tea.
As pairings of beverages and transcendent states go, peace can come on the wing of solitary cups of tea. Unlike coffee which puts the fire in our belly, gives our mind a thwack and sends us rushing off into the world, tea lets us blur the edges between ourselves and the world, and fold inwards. For the WiFi-ravaged mind, tea can be an easy prop to switch off from the giant astral plane of technological distraction, with little or nothing to tether us to the webs of wired connectivity, information sharing, browsing, foraging and hunting. Tea in solitude can sedate the growling guard dogs of hyper productivity and hyper arousal, allowing us to fall back into the moment, sip by gentle sip.
It can soothe us enough to tip ourselves into the void, a place where peace freely roams.
Before we know it, we find ourselves bang in the middle of wide, empty swathes of not-doing and doing-nothing, where we can dip our toes in the languid waters of peace and quiet. To be fair, the void can feel like a swamp at first. Agitated with the mutterings of inner selves and outer intrusions. But if we withdraw into it anyway, unflinching, curious (and armed with a daily cup of tea), we eventually run into peace.
The arrival of peace is emphatic; unmistakable in the quietest of ways, as the inner space goes from feeling like a battle zone or a Basquiat painting to a glistening empty canvas. A blank, expansive surface with less clutter to fill it up. The metallic twang of voices in our head soften with the flickers of silence. The niggling companions that sit on our shoulders – anxiety and not-being-enough – don’t butt in as much, as we strangely settle into a feeling of okayness without too many external props.
It’s easy to miss the low-pitched rhythm of peace over the banter of louder, chattier, more interesting and glamorous emotions. But that’s okay. We can tune in to its cricket song at will, if we can just stop and quieten down. Make ourselves some tea.
For a thing so reticent, peace is surprisingly consistent. It can always be found in the steady beat of the present. Its soft hum, always audible in the bass note of the here and now, over the chirruping of the past and the future.
In our current worlds with too many words, triggers, options, opinions and reactions, peace offers the extraordinary space of pause. A refuge for magic, wildness and restoration. A sanctuary of calm. A homing signal that brings us back home to the self. A potent, alkaline place of neutrality and relaxed awareness that allows us to navigate life, with all its uncertainties and insanities, with less ache and doubt.
So as you enjoy your cup of tea today, may you set off to seek your own peacefully ever after.
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