What Does Silence Sound Like?
What does silence sound like? I know that seems like an oxymoron, and when I say how important it is for me to take time to “listen to the silence” I get a lot of funny looks.
What do I mean by listening to what cannot be heard? Is this some kind of ‘woo woo’ thing? Does it take practice or can anyone do it? What is the purpose? How, exactly do you do that?
I will attempt to answer these questions with my limited understanding of silence, both as an absence of sound and as a spiritual practice.
Mystical Silence – Can You Hear It?
For some people, silence is all they know because of profound hearing loss. I am talking about a deeper silence…one that hushes inner voices of judgement or desire.
A silence that is not so much an absence of sound waves as it is the presence of something that escapes definition.
This is the silence that fills my heart with love and peace. A mystical silence.
The silence of the early morning is an example. It brings me to a deep place of connection with Mystery.
Does the sun make a sound as it rises on the horizon? I listen.
Is there a crash when night falls?
What about the beat of time marching on?
I listen to my cat sleeping peacefully and wonder if there is any life there until I see his tail flicker…silently.
With the coming of dawn, light fills my space but there is no woosh or thump of impact as it pushes away darkness.
A totally inaudible whisper says ‘welcome’ to a new day. I hear it, not in my ears but in my heart. And I smile.
Noise and Silence Together?
Can silence coexist with noise? To a scientist the answer would be no. Sound comes from waves in the air bouncing off our ear drums. By definition it is not silent.
What my ears experience as silence could be very loud for, say, a bat.
Only a tiny percentage of the sound vibrations generated in our world are audible to the human ear, and yet I hear more of them than my sister who can hear nothing in her world without the aid of technology.
It’s the same world. And yet in this one tiny way sound and silence are different experiences for us.
Because we can ‘hear’ only a teeny slice of all the vibrations around us at any given time I wonder what we mean when we say we want to live long enough to experience ‘all’ of life.
No matter how many years we get to listen, we will still experience only a sliver of it.
Sound as Energy
Sound is air waves in motion. It is an energy that surrounds us and is emitted by all creation.
Think of the whirr of hummingbird wings, the mushrooms that ‘burst’ into being overnight, and the energy surrounding oak leaves that turn green in the spring. All of these use energy—vibrant energy that impacts all of us whether our ear drums detect it or not.
When I say I am listening to the trees what I am actually doing is allowing myself to be still and present to the sound waves that my ears cannot discern.
It is a heart practice. I am nourished by this listening. I don’t need to know the ‘meaning’ of what my heart is absorbing.
I expect the trees are also listening to me.
The sounds of my presence in the forest penetrate tree bark as well. There are messages, music and meaning going on all around me that I cannot physically hear.
And I am at peace with that. I don’t at all feel as if I am eavesdropping. I am merely being nourished in my soul.
I have learned that I can listen to silence anywhere, anytime.
In the stillness of the early morning I continue a practice of listening with my heart to what my ears cannot hear.
I am listening for what is outside my ears’ capacity to detect sound waves of a limited range.
Sound isn’t the only thing that makes waves in our world. Movement, prayer, growth, and the big one, LOVE, all carry energy that I don’t receive because I am too busy with airpods in my ears.
I am listening to a podcast, or music, or an audible book as if these were the most important vibrations in creation.
No, they are the noisiest vibrations, the ones that our world functions by.
We listen to speeches, and commentators, and symphonies and whispers. A baby cries and we rush to soothe her, a woman screams and we summon the police When thunder claps and we head indoors.
Sounds (that we can hear) give us guidance and meaning in our world. So why do I think there is more to be heard in the silence, and spend so much of my time in a quiet spot in the corner of my room listening?
Listening to the quiet. What do I ‘hear?’
I would suggest that my entire being is ‘hearing’ (ie receiving vibrations) and it is from those energy waves (Mystery?) that I learn about my world, about my inner self, and about Love.
If you haven’t set aside time and space to listen to silence, give it a try. You may come away a changed person.
Do you enjoy ideas to think about during the week?
Sign up here now and receive a reflection every Sunday
