Silent Meditations

            At the bottom of a slush covered hill, I discover homemade wind chimes dangling from a small tree. The metal cylinders hang motionless, circling a wooden peg attached to a thin rope. I grab the rope and thrust it hard. The chimes ring loudly, awfully, creating a nasty chaos of noise that shatters the stillness of the cemetery. I calm the chaotic motion. Now, I brush the rope gently. The peg touches the metal cylinders, brushing off them in a calm cool rhythm. Pleasing vibrations enter the space.

The harder I push, the more chaos is created. A gentle approach yields pleasant vibrations.

The chimes cease, and silence reigns once more. I am fascinated by silence. I have chosen to write my first nature essay about it. I am fascinated with how little I encounter silence in my day-to-day life. I am fascinated with how much I often fear it.

In silence, I become vulnerable to myself. Oftentimes, my mind is not a pleasant space to inhabit. My desires run rampant, screaming at me to satisfy them. My existential fears find a megaphone and barrage my struggle for peace of mind. In silence, I must face these demons. I cannot distract myself with a cell phone or a computer screen or a TV or a bag of buttered popcorn. 

Spiritual writer Eckhart Tolle writes: "Whenever there is some silence around you — listen to it. That means just notice it. Pay attention to it. Listening to silence awakens the dimension of stillness within yourself, because it is only through stillness that you can be aware of silence." He goes on to say: "When you lose touch with inner stillness, you lose touch with yourself. When you lose touch with yourself, you lose yourself in the world." Tolle equates inner stillness with silence. We ought not simply seek silent places--we must listen to the silence. We are active participants. In so doing, we encounter depths to our stillness that can often be difficult to find. 

I once spent five days in total silence. I spoke to no one. I was in Guatemala, studying at a meditation center beside Lago de Atitlan, the most magnificent lake I’ve ever witnessed. During those five days, the final days of a one-month retreat, I was not even allowed to read. The mantra was: “You with you.” All I could do was write, sit, and breathe.

The first three days were remarkably difficult. I needed noise. I was so dissatisfied with my thoughts I could hardly sit still. Even in Atitlan, cradled within volcanic peaks, watching the sunlight glint off the lake’s surface, I could not find peace.

Gradually, something changed. I began to feel at peace with myself. I sat in the garden, watching butterflies move flower to flower, smelling the delicious herbs growing. I am not sure what changed, but a peace of mind I’ve never known before rose. With nothing to distract myself, my mind settled the muck that I often fill it with. I stopped thrusting the wooden peg, and the chimes of my psyche calmed their ceaseless ringing. I felt their stillness. 

Depths manifest in silence. Here, in the cemetery, I retreat from the noise of my life and encounter parts of myself I often want to keep buried.