Sweet Silence, Solitude

Today, I felt a deep sense of being alone and it felt badly. It just seems that the last 24 hours, or so, I've been posting, what seems to me quite significant quotations, not only here, but on Facebook, and Google Plus. Without any feedback, even a 'like' on these posts, I've been left with a feeling of isolation and invisibility. So, instead of shutting down my Facebook and Google accounts, I did something radical. I decided to go deeper into that feeling of aloneness and when my wife went to run errands and visit with a friend, I decided to go deeper into that feeling. I sat still, alone on this bench, in our yard for near an hour.

As I sat in silence, and although there were sounds of our busy street on the other side of our house, I heard only my own heart beat and the song and rustling of birds and I no longer felt badly. In place I found contentment that I don't feel when being bombarded by the constant barrage of noise of everyday life. No TV commercials telling me that I don't have enough. No authors pointing out how discontented I feel and then offering, if I buy his book, how to overcome that discontent. In that silence, I felt that I am, and I have, enough without the feedback that I thought I needed from social networks.

So now, I can do the next thing that needs to get done, content in the experiential body felt knowledge, that peace and contentment is only a heartbeat away and it doesn't rely on waiting for someone to 'like' it.

Recognize the Diversity in Yourself - Thomas Moore

I was exploring the recent update to one of my favorite websites, BARQUE: THOMAS MOORE AS CATALYST. It was entitled, Thomas Moore writes about the sounds of silence , and contained a link to the Resurgence Magazine article on the subject. Of course I had to explore to see if the British magazine had made Moore's other articles available and I found an extremely meaningful article.

It's title, Your Many Selves: Recognise the diversity within yourself and you will begin to see it in others , immediately sparked my imagination. I'm sure that I've read this before, but it seemed to have a renewed immediacy for me. I imagine that this concept, of "many selves within each of us" is the reason that I began to be comfortable with the different aspects of my own complex personality and so, too, demands that I return to Moore's work.

Finding Out Who You Are....

The first Christmas after we started dating, I gave both my wife and her daughter a framed poster with the following quote on it. I haven't been able to track down an author but do hope that you may find something personal in it.

Listening
to your heart,
finding out who you are,
is not simple.
It takes time for
the chatter to quiet down.
In the silence of "not doing"
we begin to know
what we feel.
If we listen & hear
what is being offered,
then anything in life
can be our guide.
Listen.