The Sound of Silence

I realize it has been some time since I have written in this blog. Although I have maintained some presence online in the many venues I visit, for many weeks I have been experiencing an unexpected exercise in the sound of silence.

It started with a particularly intense case of the flu, bringing my busy life virtually to a standstill for almost two weeks (with an even longer recovery time). Then I developed a lingering case of laryngitis that only now is finally subsiding. Because I was unable to talk on the phone or engage in conversations, this had a significant impact on my professional and personal life. Yet I discovered my life was far more flexible than I realized, perfectly capable of accommodating the unexpected.

While at first I fought the illness and the imposed silence, after a time, I began to recognize the gifts they were bringing my way, seemingly uninvited. As I listened ever more closely in the silence and the stillness, I began to discern and release those things in my life distancing and distracting me from those things that really mattered. The gift of the silence was clarity, not to mention a noticeable deepening of my own spiritual practice, allowing me to rediscover vital tools I had for a time forgotten or neglected. I even discovered the serenity of a beautiful nature park in my area I had known existed for over a year, yet for some reason had never bothered to visit...a wonderful park just waiting to be explored, rendered all the more special because of the wait.

Ironically, in the midst of the silence, I made two huge steps in the direction of discovering my voice, at a time when my physical voice was virtually gone. For the first time, I conducted two small seminars at a metaphysical expo held at the Oregon Convention Center, loved every minute of both, despite practically whispering as I leaned into the microphone (and also providing the space for others to speak in significant ways, yet another reason why my voice was diminished).

Before my physical voice returned, a new book project intuitively appeared on my radar, one that simply cannot wait to be written, thus expanding my current active book projects from one to two.

And, yes, finally I return to this blog, a blog I intend to take in new directions in the coming weeks.

Those of us conscious of our spirituality often expect that the perfect life will proceed exactly as planned, and we set our intent to make it so. What we fail to realize, however, is the imperfection of what we think might be perfect. The overall map of our lives cannot be written by micro-controlling every single moment. Can we begin to perceive the divine perfection of unexpected gifts?

The sound of silence lingers with me still, never again to be forgotten in those sacred spaces of the day I intentionally set aside for the Stillness of Spirit.