The Power of Silence

"The Power Of Silence"

We were out at Sauvie Island to go to the corn maze and hopefully find
some interesting pumpkins to take home for Halloween.  I've been pretty
out of the loop of what is normally my favorite holiday, having been so
busy worrying about other stuff.  But the harvest season is a pretty
special time, and worthy of celebration.  So we donned our mud boots
and sloshed around in the corn maze. 

Just as exciting as finding my way out of the maze, I was just taking
time to enjoy the sound of the wind rustling in the corn leaves.  It
reminded me of two very distinct things:
One was Red Sorghum, a book I read in college, and the Chinese
film that came out of the book.  Red Sorghum is a movie full of imagery
and lush with color.  Red is the primary theme of the movie, and
represents every major theme from war, nationalism and bloodshed to
life, vitality and fertility. The thing that reminded me of the movie
though was the silence.  The film is rather sparse on dialogue and relies on mood.  There's lots of footage of the
sorghum rustling in the wind.  The second thing the corn reminds me of is my childhood and all the time I spent in
the country (where there were nothing but cornfields, miles and miles of cornfields, and I grew up playing in corn
fields with all of my cousins.  There is no quieter place on earth than when you are walking through the tall silent
fields with only the rustle of leaves in the breeze to interrupt your thoughts.
Being on the island, the most striking thing was the silence.  I had forgotten what
peace and quiet sounds like.  Being in the city will do that to you.  When I lived down south and worked in
the fields, there was a great deal of silence and solitude.  But there was also the sound of the wind, squirrels
scampering around, hawks shreiking as they circled overhead, and cattle lowing in the lower pastures.  The only human
sounds were those I made, singing songs to an audience of deer, or the rythms of physical labor.

"If we take time daily to experience physical stillness and to direct our attention inside, we can begin to find the
peace, love, will and wisdom that exist as our essence."

My daily life is full of noise...the sounds of cars driving down the street, the trains passing out of the yard, people
talking on the bus, music, horns, the conversations of my roommates, electronic noises, sirens, television.  In other
words peace and quiet is real hard to come by, and to think over all this noise takes a lot of effort.

"In the sweet territory of silence we touch the mystery. It’s the place
of reflection and contemplation, and it’s the place where we can
connect with the deep knowing, to the deep wisdom way."-- Angeles Arrien

The things I thought about up on the mountain top seemed more simple, but yet more
profound.  A lot of the thought were basic, but many were concerned with analyzing the natural
cycles going on around me.  The way the clouds drifted across the slopes, the movements of the
herds, the likelyhood of rain, the direction of the wind, and the meaning of life when I found
rat skulls while weeding.  When you are doing field work with a group of people, they really tend
to do a lot of talking.  Granted a lot of it is just to pass the time, part of it is because it
is so quiet.  But the conversations that came out of the fields was fascinating in scope-part
philosophy, part practical, and could include any topic under the sun.

It's hard to find a place of quiet in the city.  Stillness is not something that occurs naturally
in a place shared by many people.  I'm still looking for a quiet hole to go contemplate the mysteries
of the universe.  Even the library's not quiet enough for that.  Out on the island, the trees rustle
in the wind, and the fields are silent and brown.  It reminds me of the past, inevitably, and the future
waiting to be born.  The past is filled with quiet voices of long gone wisdom, whispering forgotten
stories, and knew of quiet places because there were more of them long ago.  Now it is hard to hear the
voices of the ancestors, or remember their lessons.  But I do want to remember what they knew of the world
which we have forgotten.  And understand the meanings that can only be found in silence.
(Picture by Lynn Foster Fife)