Silence

I have felt a great silence opening up in my soul over past days.   I have been feeling very spacy and tired and I am not sure why but on the weekend I seemed to tap into deep, deep grief and weariness that is always there just below the surface.  I saw how tiring it is to try to make a life ‘happen’ when really our lives when lived from an inner centre would just naturally unfold.  I am seeing how much my belief that there is something wrong with me for not fitting in makes life difficult or painful when I then try to think of ways to ‘make’ connections happen and as a very wise reader of one of my blogs said in a recent comment it is not possible to ‘force’ connection with others, they either happen or do not happen if we have a contact and empathy flowing deep from inside.

I think and feel when layers of denial come off about some aspect of ourselves we do feel a great tiredness.   For a while something we struggled with or thought was true is revealed to be illusion.  Its a good thing really but at the time its confusing and painful.

I am aware lately of a soul deep loneliness inside and partly it comes from seeing things that were painful, seeing connections torn apart, partly it comes from seeing how carelessly and insensitively those who suffer are so often treated.   I know this is not the whole of experience as there are kind caring people in the world.  But sadly for a lot of us who suffer the deeper truer reality is that when we suffered there were not the right people there to turn to; people who saw and affirmed or offered comfort, protection or care.  To be without care and empathy when it is really needed is very hard As youngsters how we were treated teaches us how to treat ourselves and our inner world.  If we had those around who did not see us or treat us with care of compassion we don’t learn how to treat ourselves with those qualities either and then the traumas of our earlier years end up recurring in a downward spiral or loop of increasing disconnection.

I am always aware of the need to find some positive slant on situations when I write but the truth is that for some people the silence and absence of care becomes all too much to bear and then they take drastic measures.   The wish to no longer be here is really the wish not to have to continue to suffer when life feels too hard.  Some of us in finding this place pray and our prayers are answered as some larger source comes into comfort us.  I have experienced this myself many times, but there are other days when the silence becomes deafening.

That said, silence too can be healing.  In the silence of nature we can hear the breath of the wind or birdsong or feel the kiss of the sun on our skin.  In the silence thoughts that run over and over about our suffering leave us alone awakening us to the magic of a present moment for an instant free of past pain, restriction or restraints.  Silence can be nurturing too, a time just to stop and be and give ourselves over from the relentless driving energy that seems to consume so much of modern society.  Silence can offer an emptiness that is not barren but also mysteriously full of the numinous experience of presence, often so fleeting that never the less seems to await us patiently longing for us to return.

Lately I have wondered how much the earth grieves for busy humanity gone deaf dumb or blind to the fact nature is our source.   Animals feel us and know what is going on watching us for a cue that we might for a time drop or break free from our busy disconnectedness just for a moment to notice them.   Free of thoughts for a time our being can then just rest and draw comfort from a deep ocean of stillness within where love is known and reach out to embrace the creations of beauty around us that nature gives freely without asking anything in return.

Maybe my weariness over past days has been about just such a message.  I seemed to tap into deep grief late on Sunday after a visit to my Mum which showed me how much defendedness overlies my own grief at times.  Fighting and arguing with it or against it brings no peace and feeling the utter exhaustion of just such a response may be a kind of awakening sent from my soul to remind me how much lately letting go is needed, for in this letting go what needs to be set free is set free, and peace comes after the long struggle to accept a past that was so often beyond my control.   Nature seems so patiently to be waiting here for me to let go.