Listening Within The Silence

Blessed with the surrounding elements & nature there is very rarely a total silence but compared to the comings and goings of people it may seem so, it sometimes seems that folk even strive to avoid the quiet as I have mentioned in a previous posts. Often I have seen an uncomfortable shifting as a conversation trails off between people and often the conversation turns to the mundane to avoid the pause. When company is not available it is easily replaced with technology; television, radio or the internet are there to fill the spaces of a mind missing its barrage of stimulus. Alternatively silence develops a stigma of focus, the need for a 2 minutes silence to mark a tragedy or the silence of the academics exam room.

To sit within silence for a while and open the senses and mind to the natural world can bring a wealth of awareness, creativity and peace. The mind and body begin to resonate with a very different frequency as the quiet information of our surroundings beings to seep into the body and nourish the spirit. Like many skills, such a process is not always easy, living in a world saturated with noise and clutter the mind tends to grab at thoughts or looks for distraction to turn its full focus on to. Wants and desires can begin surface taking the mind away from the present to a possible future.

Once I had learned to sit within the silence of nature and perceive the seasons, elements and time around me for a while I was able to carry the thought patterns & perceptions with me to other places or even the close confines of a conversation and do the same. With a mind tuned to the vital baseline of the natural world, the words and games of those within a debate or the passions of an enthusiast begin to take on a new meaning and perhaps not the meaning they would wish to convey.

I found that within my own silence I began to understand deeper issues, by perception and not preconception or focused thought. Within the natural realm all sounds carry a wealth of direct information and even the quietest can carry huge importance, to filter out the deceptions and irrelevance in the dealings of people is a skill I feel I am becoming competent with, but it seems to have the effect of making certain people uneasy. That is something I am comfortable with.