The Earth Has Stopped

Yesterday, I read this quote in my meditation:

“It was one of those days so clear, so silent, so still, you almost feel the earth itself has stopped in astonishment of its own beauty.” – Katherine Mansfield

I think that is one of the most poignant, beautiful lines I have ever read.  I had never heard of the author, so thanks to the wonders of the internet I was able to find out everything I could possibly want to know about Katherine Mansfield.  She was a short story writer, from New Zealand. She was friends with D.H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf.  She passed on in 1923 due to tuberculosis at the young age of 34.

I think that quotes like the one above are why I love the written word.  When someone can help encapsulate what I am experiencing, thinking, feeling in one short statement, I think that it is nothing short of a miracle.  I think this is also why I love nature.  The author passed in 1923, but yesterday when I was walking a trail in a nature preserve with my husband and my dogs, I experienced exactly what she wrote.  The awe that I felt for the still nature around me almost took my breath away.  Nature is not timeless, but for our lifespans, it might as well be.

I don’t really have anything else to say about this.  Katherine Mansfield’s statement says it all and I am in awe of that.  And I look forward to experiencing that “earth has stopped” moment again and again for the rest of my life.