Silence Is Golden

I sat out on the back deck of the Aerie very early the other morning, silent and still in the dewy dawn. The only man-made sounds were the cars that wind up the Key Peninsula Highway towards the city, work, and the bustle of the two-legged world. I let that sound and thought go while opening myself to the beginning of this natural day.

I love the early hours, after my husband leaves for Tacoma and before my daughter wakes up. I'm a lone wolf by nature and crave the sweet solitude to balance my inner Medicine Wheel. As I sipped my tea, I thought of Stephanie's post on silence...and the truth of her statement about the encroachment of loneliness for many within quiet reflection. Cut off from other people, they feel separate and abandoned...quickly reaching to pull company in through the radio, television, computer, or telephone.

Violet-green swallows began to quickly pen long and graceful prose on the golden haze above me, finches and sparrows the entering and exiting punctuation. A wee Anna's Hummingbird breakfasted on the butterfly bush not two feet from my left shoulder, a little colour-commentary. The sunlight began to pour into Joe's Bay like the tide, painting its oro aura around a Great Blue Heron that perched in the bare top branches of a giant maple. I'm often more lonely in a crowd of people than I am here, in the company of my wild relations and my self.

Our place in nature...and the silence...holds so much communication beyond stilted words, beyond the static of electronic waves. Here, the forgotten language of intent and connection opens doors to neglected rooms of the heart, mind and spirit. In this silence the wild ones come. In this silence I greet my wild self as a small but integral part of a bigger whole.

My eyes had closed with these last thoughts but now, heightened senses told me of a new presence in the garden. Slowly I opened my eyes and stared straight into the amber eyes of a beautiful buck. His four-point, velvety antlers shone olive and gold as a crown upon his head. A few feet from him stood a doe, chestnut in the coating sunlight. Relaxing, they resumed their tango around the garden, he with his stiff-legged approach, she with flirtatious high kicks.

In solitude I am gifted with sunlit company. In my own silence I am gifted with the symphony of a new turning of the earth. In the blue-lit pyramid of my heart, mind and spirit are all these connections that save me from the noise of Mankind's fears, that call me from my sleeping self into another day's dance.

The Sound of Silence

Lorraine’s comment about people being frightened of silence has been rolling around in my noggin ever since she commented on my “Hang Up and Drive” post. Is it part of the human condition that we feel the need for constant buzz in the ear or is it a result of the Industrial/Technological Revolution?

Because our modern lives are filled with so much noise, silence can be unnerving. It emphasizes our loneliness, regardless how transitory, and turns our focus to our inner demons or thoughts that prey upon our mind. The noise tends to cancel out that sort of thing whereas silence can make us edgy and even seem malevolent. Silence is even referred to as “dead.”

I was reminded again of Lorraine’s comment this morning as I was shopping. It is not enough that people feel the need to have the television on at home, the radio on in the car or to be yakking on the cell phone, they need to be entertained while shopping. While strolling through Goodwill in Gig Harbor this morning the staff seemed to be having difficulty getting the radio on station or the needle in the groove (do I date myself?) and it started to drive me crazy. Compared to the snap, crackle and pop of their audio system, the silence truly seemed golden. I wanted to scream, “It’s okay, I can take the silence!”

Why is it that we can’t stand the silence? Why do we feel the need to be constantly distracted from what we’re doing? I am as guilty as the next person feeling the constant need to have the radio on. In case of a storm it is even more important to me to have a battery operated radio going. Is this some Cold War hold over from the fear of being the last person alive in the world or am I just unhappy with whom I am alone with in the silence?

Does silence frighten you?