Last Wednesday Wisdom for May 2017

On the last Wednesday of every month, I serve up a potpourri of advice, inspiration and other tidbits I've come across in recent weeks. In the spirit of an earlier post on a silent hike (and having been forced into near silence by losing my voice over the weekend), this month's offerings are on the subject of silence. It's okay to read them aloud, though.

Silence gives us the impetus for awareness and creativity. Sometimes our minds need to be emptied before our spirits can be filled.
​-- Ardath Rodale

Do not the most moving moments of our lives find us all without words?
-- Marcel Marceau

Silence is not a thing we make; it is something into which we enter. It is always there . . . All we can make is noise.
-- Mother Maribel of Wantage

Silence is more musical than any song.
-- Christina Rossetti

Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact.
​-- George Eliot

In wilderness people can find the silence and the solitude and the noncivilized surroundings that can connect them once again to their evolutionary heritage, and through an experience of the eternal mystery, can give them a sense of the sacredness of all creation.
-- Sigurd Olson, author and environmentalist

Try to pay more attention to the silence than to the sounds . . . Every sound is born out of silence, dies back into silence, and during its life span is surrounded by silence . . . It is an intrinsic but unmanifested part of every sound, every musical note, every song, and every word.
​-- Eckhart Tolle, author and spiritual teacher

Not merely an absence of noise, Real Silence begins when a reasonable being withdraws from the noise in order to find peace and order in his inner sanctuary.
-- Peter Minard, ​Benedictine monk

There is a way that nature speaks, that land speaks. Most of the time we are simply not patient enough, quiet enough to pay attention to the story.
-- Linda Hogan, poet, author and environmentalist

Silence is our deepest nature, our home, our common ground, our peace.  Silence reveals.  Silence heals.
-- Gunilla Norris, poet and author

Seek silence.
Gladden in silence.
Adore silence.

As one progresses on the path, one seeks silence more and more. 
It will be a great comfort, a tremendous source of solace and peace.

Once you find deep solitude and calm, there will be a great gladness in your heart. 
Here finally is the place where you need neither defense nor offense -- the place where you can truly be open. 
There will be bliss, wonder, the awe of attaining something pure and sacred.

After that, you will feel adoration of silence. 
This is the peace that seems to elude so many. 
This is the beauty of Tao.
-- Deng Ming-Dao, author and artist, 365 Tao: Daily Meditations