I love this passage, Renee. I have entered a period of my life where I need to think about rest and how I rest differently. In many ways, I need to learn how to rest, and it’s this kind of contemplative resting that I’m exploring. Thank you!
I love your mirrored pictures. I don't think i have experienced silence as described. I'm looking at tress when I look up from typing and I hear the gentle calls of birds. but that seems far from the purity of silence.
Although it's not about silence, your post made me think about Wallace Stevens's The Snowman, which I suppose is a sort of melding with the winter scene.
"One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;
And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter
Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,
Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place
For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is."
Thank you for evoking such silence here with Stevens's poem, The Snowman. I am drawn immediately into the tenderness of the soft, supple silence of snow.
It is the same with the gentle call of birds and the silence between the sound of one finger tapping and another; everywhere the "nothing that is not there and the nothing that is." These sounds may have more say than snow, but behind and between them is silence.
In the hour or so before dawn (depending on time of year), there comes a moment when the sound of day is bird-by-bird awakened from the silence of night. Even where the city doesn't sleep, there is a silence that is easier to hear at night than in the daytime. At the "waking hour," one gets the sense of the bird call coming out of a profound silence and between each call, a profound silence, until a cacophony of birdsong fills the air. This is especially apparent in the summer. It is as if the birds sing to reveal--and perhaps revere--silence.
silence grows. Yes! I love silence. The more you listen to it the more it speaks and expands our hearts. Now I'll add the concept of 'drinking silence' to my vocabulary. Thank you Renée 💗🙏
I love this passage, Renee. I have entered a period of my life where I need to think about rest and how I rest differently. In many ways, I need to learn how to rest, and it’s this kind of contemplative resting that I’m exploring. Thank you!
Emily,
"I need to learn to rest, and it's this kind of contemplative resting that I'm exploring." May we all learn to rest in this way, Emily.
The words of Báyò Akómoláfé are now sounding:
"The times are urgent. Let us slow down."
Thank you for sharing. 🙏
Thanks Renee, I love Bayo.
Renee,
I love your mirrored pictures. I don't think i have experienced silence as described. I'm looking at tress when I look up from typing and I hear the gentle calls of birds. but that seems far from the purity of silence.
Although it's not about silence, your post made me think about Wallace Stevens's The Snowman, which I suppose is a sort of melding with the winter scene.
"One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;
And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter
Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,
Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place
For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is."
David,
Thank you for evoking such silence here with Stevens's poem, The Snowman. I am drawn immediately into the tenderness of the soft, supple silence of snow.
It is the same with the gentle call of birds and the silence between the sound of one finger tapping and another; everywhere the "nothing that is not there and the nothing that is." These sounds may have more say than snow, but behind and between them is silence.
In the hour or so before dawn (depending on time of year), there comes a moment when the sound of day is bird-by-bird awakened from the silence of night. Even where the city doesn't sleep, there is a silence that is easier to hear at night than in the daytime. At the "waking hour," one gets the sense of the bird call coming out of a profound silence and between each call, a profound silence, until a cacophony of birdsong fills the air. This is especially apparent in the summer. It is as if the birds sing to reveal--and perhaps revere--silence.
That’s beautiful Renee.
🙏
🙏
🙏
silence grows. Yes! I love silence. The more you listen to it the more it speaks and expands our hearts. Now I'll add the concept of 'drinking silence' to my vocabulary. Thank you Renée 💗🙏
"The more you listen to it the more it speaks and expands our hearts." So very true. Thank you, Veronika. 🙏💖