Silent
Circles
“By
making room for silence, we resist the forces of the world which tell us to
live an advertised life of surface appearances, instead of a discovered life—a life
lived in contact with our senses, our feelings, our deepest thoughts and
values.”
Gunilla
Norris (Sharing Silence)
How
much silence do you have in your life? I live in an urban neighborhood. From my
house, I can hear a metal recycling plant, commuter traffic on the roads into
town, planes taking off and landing at the airport, the medical helicopters bringing
patients to two major hospitals within three miles, freight trains coming and
going twenty-four seven, the party crowd yelling above the music at a brewery
and distillery nearby, lawnmowers and leaf blowers almost all day, every day.
Three blocks over, a fire & police station periodically comes alive with
loud-speakers and sirens. Couple that with the shrieks and laughter of children
playing and dogs barking, and you’ll understand why, day or night, there is no
such thing as silence here.
I love
my neighborhood and have learned to block out most of the noise. Some of it,
like the train horns and children playing, I even enjoy. But we do need a
stretch of silence to be able to go within and connect with ourselves, to
think without distraction, to plan logistically. Before I go out now, I’ve
started making lists of what I need to do so that I won’t forget something.
Noise, including background noise, interferes with clear thinking even when we
aren’t aware of it.
In a
few weeks, I’m going to a silent writer’s retreat on the North Carolina coast.
Hopefully, the required silence will provide a gateway into a story I want to write.
Octavio Paz, in The Bow and the Lyre, wrote, “A silence that is like
a lake, a smooth and compact surface. Down below, submerged, the words are
waiting. And one must descend, go to the bottom, be silent, wait.” I hope
he’s right. Perhaps the ocean sounds will overwhelm my mental noise and lead me
to those submerged words.
I
wonder about you—do you make time for silence in your life? Do you create a
pool of quiet at some point in your day, either alone or with others, to simply
listen within, to think about yourself, your life? In the book, Wisdom
Circles, by Garfield, Spring, and Cahill, it is suggested that we take time
for silence in our circles. “As we sit in silence together, we can better
feel our soul connections. This is the time to clear our minds…This is the time
for whatever has been hanging back in the recesses of our consciousness to show
up and be heard.” (p.113)
Even if you are not part
of a wisdom circle, creating a few minutes of silence each day, to gather yourself
and connect with your inner wisdom, makes an enormous difference in your
perceived level of stress, and may even bring some answers to questions you’re
lugging around in your head. Light a candle and give silence ten minutes to
settle into your bones—then ask all the questions hiding in your heart. And
remember to wait…for the answers.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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