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Your task, if you chose to accept it, is to take a bit of time to write. Write about silence. Period. The form is entirely up to you -- a monologue, your own crazed interior thoughts or rants, a short story about someone you've known who lost the ability/will to speak, an essay on having to interpret another's silence, a significant moment when you chose to remain silent, a fairy tale, allegory, poem, or song -- whatever you'd like. You may chose to write about the inability to speak, *forced* silence (by a political entity, one's own shyness, physical or mental disability, emotional gag order, social pressure), or *chosen* silence (the silence of cathedrals, the meditative rest of the mind, avoidance of the incessant talker who says nothing, etc.). Write about the glory of mimes if you'd like -- the choice is entirely yours! Lest the theme sound too dark, rest assured that all styles, from the gently comic, to the amusingly hostile, to the gloriously irreverent are welcome.
Post it here and start the conversation. Simply hit the comment button below and sign in anonymously or as a member of the blogging community and write whatever you'd like in the comment box. The box will automatically expand to fit your needs. Now, how often does life work that way? Enjoy!
A forum for people to share stories about their personal experience with the phenomena of silence.
8 comments:
"In the end we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." -- Martin Luther King, Jr.
This is a great idea! I will write more later, but thought this quote might spark some discussion. I can't wait to see what others write!
Hey, can we add links to exhibitions, photos, etc.? Or is this spot mostly for written stories?
ABSOLUTELY add visual and aural links and elements! They are most welcome and there are no limitations here in terms of medium. While I'll eventually be sorting the stories and links into categories on the blog, for the time being just list your links here under the comments section.
FYI: Periodically, I will be posting questions or quotes for your responses and thoughts, but even then, comments need not be limited directly to the question at hand, though they should be somehow related to the Silence theme.
Happy brainstorming,
Gina
Thought you might find this one interesting. http://www.onesquareinch.org/
-Sten
On silence... and solitude...
they give me a sense of self... and Otherness.
In silence I can live with sweetness or sadness...
Silence and solitude open up space for the Spirit to manifest/shine forth... seep in... seek my spirit... and fill me.
Silence gives me room to breathe... to see... to recognize the signs, the symbols, the "sacra-moments"... the Sacred in my ordinary life.
Silence draws me to sit, to stand, to rest, to pause... in the Presence of the One who sustains me... who lives within...
The Someone who asks this someone to be present to others, to love, to be tender mercy.
In silence, in quiet, I have room to listen... to see... to live here, now... to embrace the present/The Presence... to be.
Here is just a stream of consciousness of thought on the subject:
Silence, the absence of sound makes music in the recesses of my mind. Silence makes music so much more thrilling, not knowing what is to come next, is it over or just time to catch a breath and reflect on the musical interlude the preceeded it? As I sit in my room listening to the silence (funny phrase "listening to silence") I somehow hear inside my head the music that was just made in my classroom. So am I really silent or does silence exist for me? I don't think so, except, perhaps, when deep sleep has overcomed me. I can't imagine a silent world where the sound of life has been asked to stop, for me, that would be physically painful, or, I guess, the finality of death. Is Silence really golden? Maybe for some, for me unreachable.
"Raimon Panikkar (The Experience of God)makes a distinction between what he calls 'the silence of life' and a 'life of silence'...
(Panikkar) The LIFE OF SILENCE... is important to realize our objectives, to plan our actions or develop our relations...
The SILENCE OF LIFE is the art of making silent the activities of life that are not life itself in order to reach the pure experience of life itself...
Plunged into the activities of life, we lose the faculty of listening, and we alienate ourselves from our very source: God. Silence appears at the moment when we position ourselves at the very source of being.'
Nothing so much approximates the language of God as does silence. It's a language we need to practice."
Excerpts from a column by Ron Rolheiser (www.ronrolheiser.com)- from his archives, 8/26/07
I cannot live without silence.
Here is a fragment of a poem by Conrad Potter Aiken:
"...and we who on music so leaf-like have drifted together,
Leaflike apart shall be whirled,
Into what, but the beauty of silence, silence forever.
This is the shape of the tree and the flower and the leaf,and the
three pale beautiful pilgrims.
This is what you are to me..."
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