Sound and Silence
This morning as I struggled to get moving on my Monday morning to-do list, a friend shared this quote.
“Sorry I’m late I sat on my bed in a towel for 34 minutes staring at a wall.”
I commented that I thought it was just me who so often feels like I show up just under the wire, in the nick of time, or fashionably late, for so much of life and for no particular reason. Apparently, I’m not, in fact, the only one experiencing that need to offer a shameful apology for not rushing to make every deadline that the world seems to demand. This realization points to some deeper underpinning in our culture, time, and social location, that expresses a more widely shared current mood.
One question to ask is:
“what’s really happening in those moments of stillness and silence?”
The act of “sitting and staring” is essentially following the impulse to meditate, and resisting the pressure to always DO when we just need to BE. A simple paradigm shift and leaning into the practice is all that it takes to enjoy, celebrate, and embrace the silence. No apology is needed for nurturing ourselves with the deliciousness of silence. From that silence, we can cultivate the ability to listen deeply to our own inner landscapes and respond to our own deepest physical, emotional, spiritual, and mental needs. In fact, if we’re not doing that, how can we effectively show up in meaningful ways for anything or anyone else? If we’re not rooted in silence, any sound we make tends to be just noise.
The experience of slowing down and staying home as a result of COVID-19 presented an opportunity to consider new choices about how, or even if, I would resume the daily rhythms and demands of my previous working life. I lost a job that wasn’t working for me on many levels, and decided to create a reality that aligns with my most deeply held values and the people who bring me joy. I’m writing and playing music, studying and practicing mystical ancient traditions, and resisting any pressure to do things that don’t resonate with my simplest, most relaxed, playful self. If a global pandemic teaches this world anything, I hope it’s that every moment is precious.
These days it’s hard to tell what our collective human species is learning. It’s easy to feel despair, anxiety, and depression when following news and social media, speaking of noise. I have to limit how much of those things I consume just as I try to limit carb consumption. Recently I spent several days feeling sad before waking up to my own choices and realizing that, without practicing the transformative power of daily creativity, my worldview becomes negative and hopeless. V, the arts activist formerly known as Eve Ensler1, helped to popularize the term artivist.
“Artivism—where edges are pushed, imagination is freed, and a new language emerges altogether.”
Now that’s some noise worth making.
For me, and I hope for many of us, it’s time to practice artivism on the regular when we’re not busy napping or otherwise only live-ing!
Footnotes
1Eve Ensler
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