What Lives in the Silence?
Things we often cannot hear.
I am on retreat. This is something I have never really done. I have worked for retreats before and been a part of them that way, but I always felt like I had to be on and taking care of the needs of others. I am good at that; helping and supporting. Support Wizardess is even the name I gave myself when I was told I could choose my own title.
I have never dropped into the silence in the way that I have the last couple days on this personal, small writing retreat. There are things that live here in the silence. I have been able to hear things more clearly, because I am truly listening. Yesterday it was the rain. I sat on the couch after a morning of writing and just listened to the rain. I watched through the rickety screen door a puddle that had grown. When the rain was slow the few drops would ripple out and then into each other. When it came harder bubbles formed from the drops then seemed to burst just as quickly. I had the time, space, and silence to notice and delight in it.
What lives in the silence are the places in ourselves we try to hide from. The places we try to ignore, push away, pretend are not there at all. Today in the silence there was grief and guilt. I didn’t want to stay there in the silence with them, but in the silence there is nowhere to run away from feeling. Noticing all the times I have reached for my phone wanting a distraction from my feelings, only to be reminded that I have made the choice to have it in airplane mode. We are doing an hour of intentional sharing, and that is the hour I can turn it on, share these words, text my Love and check- in.
What lives in the silence is the truth. PINK has a song with the line, “The quiet scares me ’cause it screams the truth.” That has always felt true to me. I am sitting in intentional silence for certain times of the day and the truth is loud and present when I am not trying to hide from it, not trying to just go on with my busy life. I feel as if I have lived life times in moments of silence. I have felt tired, sad, joy, ease, pain, grief, guilt, excitement, contentment, curiosity… and more. All just this morning.
There is truth in the silence and the slowing down to notice what lives there.
