Have you ever walked alone in the forest while the snow was falling? It’s eerie how silent it becomes when it snows. Snow is dense and absorbs sound waves and it’s why when there is a lot of snow on the ground and in the air, it really does become more quiet.
For most people, spending time in silence is extremely difficult. People are uncomfortable being alone, sitting in silence, and spending time alone with their thoughts. Our thoughts can be unnerving, as once we have experienced the hardships and very real traumas of life- as so many of us have- we tend to carry an assortment of mental and emotional, spiritual even, luggage around with us. Bigly luggage, loaded with stones too heavy to carry; but we shoulder the burden nonetheless.
Two times in my life I have had the opportunity to attend week-long silent meditation retreats at active Buddhist monasteries. At retreats, participants take a vow of Noble Silence before the week begins and for the next six nights nobody speaks. To sit in silence, all day and into the evening, meditating, and not talking for a week, is a life-changing experience; the kind of experience which alters the foundations a life had hitherto been built upon.
I attended meditation retreats at Spirit Rock, CA. On these retreats, cell phone use is not allowed; nor are watching television, reading the news or books. The food is exceptional, but it is vegan.
A meditation retreat is purifying in many ways, it’s almost indescribable. I am searching for the words to convey and I am having trouble finding them. Great insight and clarity is often arrived at, problems solved, life embraced, relationships restored. Retreats are wonderful and beautiful and moving experiences. The proof is firmly in the pudding. Banana pudding, but I am biased.
Also, along this line of thinking about silence, we are able to make choices which lead us toward silence or toward the noise. I lived much of the last year alone, due to work-related issues. I chose not to have cable, watch even basic television, or listen to much radio. I wanted to escape as much as I could the daily bombardment of other people thinking for me, I wanted to become more comfortable sitting alone, in silence, with my thoughts. Now, to be sure, I read and read often. Also, I made a calculated decision to purchase a Spotify premium family plan. I listened to a lot of music, commercial free, over the last year. I have a massive playlist titled, “Dad’s playlist.” Incredibly, Post Malone is one of my favorites.
I have a crazy thought this morning, this imagining. It’s true, I still dream and imagine and I enjoy the shit out of it.
It’s a quiet morning, school is out for the summer, so, as a teacher, I am thinking, writing, reflecting. Reading will come later. As for this moment, the puppies sleep in silence. They are comfortable in silence and what clear consciences they must have to be able to sleep so quickly and soundly. The envy I have, me, carrying this luggage with stones.
But my dreaming this morning is revolutionary; at least I think so. I was imagining what it would be like for 40 days- since it’s such a profound number- to silence Trump. Perhaps my imagination is getting the best of me, as I wondered what 40 days of not hearing about Trump would offer us, as a population of human persons. What if, for 40 days every news and print media chose not to speak or write or mention Trump. What if we iced him, left him, moved on to more important topics? What if we chose Trump silence and we spoke and wrote about dogs and gardens and artisan bread. What if we chose silence over “news?”
As it is, Trump has become synonymous with news. Trump is the news. If we are watching or reading the news, we are watching or reading Trump. And in my world, Trump is not related to silence, he is the antithesis of silence. He is noisy and abrasive and mean. He is a Class 5 Hurricane landing on a peaceful, organic farm of indigenous people on the coast; he is not snow falling silently in the forest as the raven crows and the deer skip through trees.
While all of us are angry at Republicans, the enablers, and the devastating conservative base supporting Trump, each of us, have grown this monster by our failure to step away and find our own silence, and by collectively, speaking, writing, and slamming him.
I have brought Trump to life as much as the Republican, the NRA, and Russian intelligence operations. In acknowledging such, I now aim to walk away, to find silence from Trump. Yes, I will meditate, I will read, I will garden, eat artisan bread, and walk with my dogs. I will listen to Post Malone, and others, and go for walks in the snow.
For the time being, this means I must also step away from Daily Kos.
My act of defiance in these trouble times? Voluntary silence and walking away from the noise.
Much love to humanity. No man is an island and a thousand million threads bind us.
Peace, and silence...