Silence Is Life
The past few weeks have been stressful, and I have found my practice of Self-care embedded enough to do something each day (mainly reiki daily, with some erratic meditation practice), and not yet strong enough to provide me with a full well from which to draw each day.
I was falling into the trap of berating myself for not using all the Self-care tools available to me when I realised that a) I was using some every day, and b) it was clear that even that small amount made a difference. My daily practice of Self-care is still young and tender, to be nurtured, not scorned.
Self-compassion, I reminded myself, is the wellspring of compassion for others.
After spending time over the past couple of days pondering the way in which I've been allowing myself to fill up most of the silence in my life with Stuff - mainly radio programmes (even ones I wasn't interested in) or just surfing YouTube - because I'm still resisting the power of Silence to ground and centre me and bring me to my Self, I went to Meeting for Worship.
As I sat in the silence of a genuinely gathered Meeting, one of the Elders stood and read out a passage from BYM's Advices & Queries:
" 3. Do you try to set aside times of quiet for openness to the Holy Spirit? All of us need to find a way into silence which allows us to deepen our awareness of the divine and to find the inward source of our strength. Seek to know an inward stillness, even amid the activities of daily life. Do you encourage in yourself and in others a habit of dependence on God's guidance for each day? Hold yourself and others in the Light, knowing that all are cherished by God."
How could I not smile?
The it came to me again that Silence is a quality and power of the North, of age, of Earth, rock, soil, tree and bone; the states of being in the womb, sleep, the grave; the necessary "void" which contains all life, all creativity, all movement; that it is a container of transformation, of meeting the Self, which is simultaneously individual and everything; that all sound is the space between silences; and that the still point is the place of power, strength, and wisdom. Silence is fertile. 96% of the universe is space, and silent.
And Silence - real Silence, not just the absence of noise, or the cowed inability to speak our truth which is born of fear, but that deep, earthen, skeletal place of darkness and light - is something that needs practice in a world where we're taught to fill up the silence so we don't get to meet our Selves and find our power. It's a necessary prerequisite for knowing who we are, for the blooming of ideas. There would be no song without silence, no truth spoken without its enfolding comfort.
Silence is life.
I was falling into the trap of berating myself for not using all the Self-care tools available to me when I realised that a) I was using some every day, and b) it was clear that even that small amount made a difference. My daily practice of Self-care is still young and tender, to be nurtured, not scorned.
Self-compassion, I reminded myself, is the wellspring of compassion for others.
After spending time over the past couple of days pondering the way in which I've been allowing myself to fill up most of the silence in my life with Stuff - mainly radio programmes (even ones I wasn't interested in) or just surfing YouTube - because I'm still resisting the power of Silence to ground and centre me and bring me to my Self, I went to Meeting for Worship.
As I sat in the silence of a genuinely gathered Meeting, one of the Elders stood and read out a passage from BYM's Advices & Queries:
" 3. Do you try to set aside times of quiet for openness to the Holy Spirit? All of us need to find a way into silence which allows us to deepen our awareness of the divine and to find the inward source of our strength. Seek to know an inward stillness, even amid the activities of daily life. Do you encourage in yourself and in others a habit of dependence on God's guidance for each day? Hold yourself and others in the Light, knowing that all are cherished by God."
How could I not smile?
The it came to me again that Silence is a quality and power of the North, of age, of Earth, rock, soil, tree and bone; the states of being in the womb, sleep, the grave; the necessary "void" which contains all life, all creativity, all movement; that it is a container of transformation, of meeting the Self, which is simultaneously individual and everything; that all sound is the space between silences; and that the still point is the place of power, strength, and wisdom. Silence is fertile. 96% of the universe is space, and silent.
And Silence - real Silence, not just the absence of noise, or the cowed inability to speak our truth which is born of fear, but that deep, earthen, skeletal place of darkness and light - is something that needs practice in a world where we're taught to fill up the silence so we don't get to meet our Selves and find our power. It's a necessary prerequisite for knowing who we are, for the blooming of ideas. There would be no song without silence, no truth spoken without its enfolding comfort.
Silence is life.