16 Aug Silence as Spiritual Practice
I am familiar with solitude and silence. I cultivate it. One of my practices is that I get up every morning between 4-5 so that I can be alone for several hours before my husband or the rest of the world wake up. The silence is pure, lovely, nourishing. I traveled four times to India and back on my own, and used to love to take long solitary road trips in the car, sometimes lasting more than a day.
It was interesting to read in this week’s assignments that solitude and silence are seen as traditional mystical disciplines (Hills et al.) As I identify with being a natural mystic, I wonder, which is the chicken and which is the egg? However, I do not particularly encounter the Divine more so in solitude and silence because that seems to be my natural habitat. I experience the Divine more clearly and overpoweringly in relationships and love.
I loved this line from MacKendricks: “The fleshiness of voice delights singers and intrigues poets, but, for a long time now, has repelled philosophers.” Western male philosophers have developed a culture and spirituality which are silent, solitary, and disengaged from warmth, touch, flesh, sound. So although for most people silence and solitude may be “rare and precious” (Erickson), this needs to be balanced with love, compassion, and interaction with others, or it turns into bitter loneliness.
Hearing about Johnathan’s vision fast, reading the Davis pamphlet, and pondering spending time alone in nature for the class assignment, I realized that as a woman I do not feel safe to do so. I do not feel nature is safe, or rather, I do not feel that a lone woman is safe in nature because of the human predators that may lurk there. I feel much safer being in solitude and silence among a group of strangers in the city.
It’s true that our noisy, extraverted culture would benefit from learning the value of solitude and silence. Introverts already live there.
© 2023 Catherine Auman
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