Contemplation and the Sound of Silence

It just hit me! The sound of silence is comfortable again!

Last year I had the goal of meditating regularly. I had noticed that I had become uncomfortable with silence, which never used to be the case. From my herbal background I had learned that not being comfortable with silence was also an indicator of poor health. So, I thought, regular meditation was much needed back in my life.

The meditation was helpful, but not easy. I struggled even into this year’s IHC to do it remotely well. Quieting my mind has been very difficult. Journaling helped. The first half of my current physical journal is pretty much a dumping ground for thoughts, just to get them out of my head, whether they were good, bad, or indifferent. Sort of a “verbal diarrhoea” on paper. Once I got that out of my system, journalling turned into more of a contemplation; the “thinking on paper” that has been mentioned in one of my other blogs. It continues to progress and evolve, and I feel like things are starting to congeal into something that makes more sense and is more useful to me. It’s all been useful but for different reasons.

“Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned his back on silence. Day after day he invents machines and devices that increase noise and distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meditation.”

~Jean Arp

Society doesn’t seem to value silence, contemplation, or meditation. If you can’t be seen to be working then you must not be working and therefore it’s a waste of time. It doesn’t seem to value sleep either, since the answer to so many questions about time management is to set your alarm earlier. Keep doing that and you won’t be able to get any sleep at all, and sleep is where we heal, among other things.

Suddenly, I find myself thinking of the lyrics to the Simon and Garfunkel song, The Sound of Silence, which Garfunkel said was about the inability of people to communicate with each other. Seems we don’t communicate very well with ourselves either.

“Few people even scratch the surface, much less exhaust the contemplation of their own experience.”

~ Randolph Bourne

Numbers

Pushups/equivalent: 2737

Sit-ups/equivalent: 2034

Weapon Form: 281

Hand Form: 290

RAoK: 91

Sparring: 145

Kilometres: 1224

Memorize “Mastery”: finally got working on it again

Nurture Relationships: no progress this week.

Blogging: 32

Declutter my life: got a little more decluttering done on Saturday. Two more boxes out of the way.

Great Coat project: no progress this week