On Silence

Think of silence as the water upon which you float in your canoe, pushing your oar through the water of silence.  We glide without taking notice.  Our attention is on things around us, the scenery or the desire to get from here to there.  There is no being here.  Rather Here is a passing moment on the way to somewhere else, some other feeling, relationship, task.  The silence holds us as we ignore it, tasked with other things on the mind.  What if we fall into the water?  We would panic and struggle in fear to get back into the canoe, to “safety.”  Silence is never safety.  It is always problematic, to be escaped.  But what if you just swam for a bit in the water until you got used to the wetness, the temperature, the bottomless ness of its encompassing presence.  Or maybe even dive into it and let go of the canoe.  Let go of having to go anywhere, or seE anything or accomplish anything else?  Silence is difficult when we spend a lifetime avoiding or ignoring it.  But it is always with us as we trundle along.