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Let the silence
Become
The song.
Let the stillness
Move
The throng.
Let the quiet
Speak
For wrong.
Let the tacit
Hold
Its own.
Let the silence
Become
The song.
For Linda G Hill’s SoCS prompt
Let The Silence
Silence
The Sounds In The Silence …
“Hello darkness,
My old friend,
I’ve come to talk to you again …”
The song plays incessantly in my head, sparked awake by the words of a pre-teen who shared her nighttime worries with me.
She finds it difficult to sleep. Her ears strain to pick up any errant sound: A car’s brakes, a slammed door, people’s voices, steps, a distant bark. She’s afraid they’ve come.
She’s been told she shouldn’t worry. She’s done nothing wrong. Yet there are those who hadn’t, and still had loved ones taken. And she’s not from here. Not really. Not from birth, anyway.
What if the rules change and she’s deemed “returnable”?
What if they keep her away from her parents, send her back to where she’d come from? What if she cannot find the words, if they not let her explain that she is finally, finally, home?
She lies in bed at night. Listening. Making and discarding plans. Fretting in the dark.
Maybe she’ll hide. But where? Someone at school said they sometimes have dogs. She loves dogs. Police dogs — beautiful and focused and proud — never used to scare her. They do now. At their handlers’ command, they can hunt her down. She’s seen it. On TV. In her mind. Now her dreams.
“I listen to the sounds in the silence,” she whispered, eyes bright. “And I wait. Even in my dreams, I listen … and I cry when they come.”
For The Daily Post
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Quietude
Take some time to be quiet.
Quietude. Do you remember what it is?
“Impossible,” some say. “Unrealistic.”
“Maybe the next time I am on vacation,” others lament wistfully, “… don’t know when … maybe next year. If I can manage it. Somehow.”
In this world of ours, it may be difficult to imagine taking time for quiet. Maybe harder still to figure out how. Logistics, you know. The noise of churning plans.
If you must, make a quiet-date with yourself. And keep it. But if you can let yourself release a moment of control and grab a quiet moment, do so. Today. Now.
Just do it.
Take a minute. Take two breaths. Take five minutes if you can. A half-hour if you’re extra-lucky and the stars align. A few hours if you’ve won the My-Time-Lottery …
Find a bit of quietude. This day.
A bit tomorrow, when you can.
And the next …
Whatever brief respite you clear up in your mind–take it. Make it yours. Be quiet in it. This is worth it for you, but will also pricelessly teach others who need knowing, who forgot the way to be quiet, who maybe had never learned how.
Little ones, too, need quiet time.
Some of them do not know, either. About silence. Constant beeping, typing, video, screen time, phone time, entertainment, play-dates, lessons, coaching, characters and things that move and ping and chime and replay high-pitch recordings.
Brains need quiet like they need oxygen. Like they need love. Like they need soul.
Show them you believe that quietude is important. Show them you know how … begin now …
Oh, I know it is a rare thing; silence.
In this busy, hustle-bustle, to-do lists and beeping phones, email, texts, chats, calls, meetings, reports, social obligations, family events, work mingling, and information pouring in through every moment, every pore … there is noise just about everywhere. A hiss, a buzz, a murmur, background hum of electronics, cars, people, needs, demands, small children, needy neighbors, ailing parents, crises calls …
It is because of all of that that it is all the more important to take time for quiet.
To re-align your center. To restore the foundation of yourself–of who you are and where you’re going and what makes you who you are and what calms your body why and how. Yes, all that in a moment of quietude. For once not in words, but silence.
Take time for quiet.
Let quiet in. Allow it home, again.
Take time for a calm, clear breath and momentarily emptied mind.
A pause for calibrating a brief neutral.
Be silent. Lower volume on your inner critics (they can use a moment of silence, too!).
Just take a moment. Listen to nothing but the beating of your heart, the music of your soul, the nothingness that holds the breath of life around you.
The pulse of nature.
The space between the spaces.
Silent. Powerful. Whole.
Na'ama Yehuda 
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