Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened, but go on in fortune or misfortune at their own private pace, like a clock during a thunderstorm.
-Robert Louis Stevenson


Insomnia may be a hidden gift! How many "normal sleepers" are aware of the signs of the gradual dawning of a new day? Do you know when the crickets and other night noises give way to the quiet stillness of the night? Have you heard those early birds on their hunt for worms? When do they become quiet and the early dawn of morning slowly lights the sky? I can almost tell the time of day by quietening my mind and listening to sounds...crickets and bullfrogs around 8PM until about 1AM...quiet moonshine stillness until 4AM when the early birds begin their search for worms...5AM quiet again as the sun slowly rises in the sky...I would never have known that there is a train nearby just after midnight had I not failed the counting sheep exercise miserably and listened carefully to the sounds outside. Nature's cycle there for the hearing - an insomniacs reward for sleeplessness.


If water derives lucidity from stillness, how much more the faculties of the mind! The mind of the sage, being in repose, becomes the mirror of the universe, the speculum of all creation. Chuang Tzu