Breaking Silence Is essential
Do any two souls hear in the same way —
take in the world along the same channels?
For that matter, does any one soul, one person’s deep center,
hear in precisely the same way
from one moment to the next?
Or is this listening
a process flying or swimming,
wherein the currents of air or water
move along the body,
touching one limb and then another–
dancing the body along a stream
of something more than thought
Or
feeling
alone
More than mind
Or
body.
Whole.
A wholeness
into which the words and music flow,
beginning with the listening
followed by the sound.
Barriers can muffle noise,
silence sound.
The dense forest far from the highway …
Peace
The deep ocean chanting in waves and winds
while below…
quiet rocking.
The double paned glass
that makes the apartment so removed from noises of the street;
the whoosh and whisper of the machine mimicking waves and rain
reducing conversation
to dampened peaks and valleys of sound
in the room next door;
Or the palm raised to the face —
the indignation — the refusal — the wall
of comfortable expectation
that children and women
will be silent in the assemblies.
That only the words of men
will pierce the air
and penetrate the souls of the assembled.
But not here.
Here
we will hear…
my voice, each other’s voices,
and the voice of the outcrying world.
We will hear
down into the center of our being
straight into the soul.
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