sun1.jpgMorning silence is its own thing. It’s like fresh snow, footprintless, clean, still. Even in Brooklyn, amazingly, sometimes it’s just… quiet. Which gets me thinking about silence–as someone who grew up in Quaker schools, I was taught the essential important of silence, sitting in it with others, with spirit. As a waiting, as a fullness, as a container in which I could spread–all of me and come back to myself.

 
So of course I just went to the Wikipedia silence entry and found some cool thoughts on silence and how it’s used that I thought might be morning-appropriate:

“In the Western cultures, it is sometimes difficult to interpret the message being sent by a person being silent (i.e. not speaking). It can mean anger, hostility, disinterest, or any number of other emotions. Because of this, people in Western cultures feel uneasy when one party is silent and will usually try their best to fill up the silence with small talk.”

“The Western Apaches use silence during times of uncertainty or anger in the way most people in Western cultures would be vocal. The goal is to observe and anticipate what the other party is going to do.”

“Music inherently depends on silence in some form or another to distinguish other periods of sound and allow dynamics, melodies and rhythms to have greater impact. For example, most music scores feature rests denoting periods of silence.”

“A silent mind, freed from the onslaught of thoughts and thought patterns, is both a goal and an important step in spiritual development. Such “inner silence” is not about the absence of sound; instead, it is understood to bring one in contact with the divine, the ultimate reality, or one’s own true self. Many religious traditions imply the importance of being quiet and still in mind and spirit for transformative and integral spiritual growth to occur.”

“A common way to remember a tragic accident and to remember the victims or casualties of such an event is a commemorative moment of silence. This usually means one or more minutes of silence, in which one is supposed to not speak, but instead remember and reflect on the event.”

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