the BOTANY of SILENCE soundroom

II

In the room of Silence, may you see and feel and internalize what is perhaps the key to deep spirituality. I will post and direct you to places of Silence. In return, I ask that you visit the room alone and in Silence. I also ask you to consider sending your insights to me, letting me know if I have your permission to post these insights of yours. (send to seeksilence@gmail.com)

III

The Sanctuary of Silence: in Sanctuary, Silence, Soul

Just so you know it’s not me making this up as I go along – it’s all of us who choose to participate in The Silence of Botany. It looked like the perfect mode for carrying out my purposes; but I quickly learned there’s a dearth of information on running a FB room and even less on possibilities. Like Emily Dickinson, I dwell in possibility. And so, I wouldn’t give up of TBOS. I hasten to tell you I did find this from a frustrated soul on FB’s help page on YouTube: Lol Facebook is so annoying. I can’t figure out how to run a room. I’ve done it before…

I’m not giving up, though! No – I believe in the botany of science and its benefits to expansive living too much for that.

Here follows, then, some help for you as you struggle your way in following me. First, let’s create a path through the wildflowers.

This a private meditation room and is for anyone who has learned and grown via concentration on the 3 title facets of life during the pandemic. These three s’es – Sanctuary, Silence and Soul – have come to represent for me the critical aspects of anyone’s life over time. This representation derives from a strong and long picture I have of life. Life is a journey. And it’s a journey that’s solitary, taking us from how we got here to where we’re going. Beginnings and endings vary and are very personal. Silence, Sanctuary and the Soul are the treasured tools of the trade. If you come to this room, these will be your tools.

If you received an invitation to the group from me, just use the password I gave you. Please do not give the password to anyone.

If you know of someone who would like to have a membership is this Room and did not receive an invitation, please ask them:

Send your name and email address to me at eepeirson@ gmail.com
And why you would like to be a Room Member.

You do not need to communicate with anyone who happens to be in the room when you are unless you have an agreement to do so. Thank you!

IV

To help you locate your silent place:

Be mindful of this:

Behind our image, below our words, above our thoughts, the silence of another world waits.  A world lives within us… through the opening of the mouth, we bring out sounds from the mountain beneath the soul… The noise of words keeps what we call the world there for us… Each person brings sound out of silence and coaxes the invisible to become visible.  (from ANAM CARA by John O’Donohue)

 

Then prepare yourself for a reasonable time of silence by doing a bit of writing you’ve set by or by reading anything below (I’ll keep adding).  I would suggest at least twice a week, working from 10 minutes per time to a minimum of 30 minutes.  Schedule these times and protect yourself from intrusions.

 

Why would I name this the botany of silence?

 

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn’t make any sense.

Rumi

 

There was this huge world out there, independent of us human beings and standing before us like a great, eternal riddle, at least partly accessible to our inspection and thought. The contemplation of that world beckoned like a liberation.”  Einstein

 

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter.  (John Keats)

 

the goodly fragrance of cedar

if i really wanted to worship, to
throw myself before God, to be
sanctified, sanctuaried, redeemed,
restored in
my soul, i would walk away from
the massive baptismal font,
Lake Huron, toward the towering
cathedral of cedar beams.  Unbelievers
call the cedars “the woods,” forsaking the
mystery of being covered, holified.

i would crunch my way across the carpets
of green and gold needles, cast off
by the angels hurrying heavenward
for the night to dream the dream of the
next cathedral.

My needle-crunching time would take me to the
cathedral-centre
(I would simply know I was there). I would drop
to my knees and fall on my back, looking
through the tall caps of evergreens and into
the heavenly blue sky. And I would listen, deeply, openly
with absolute silence to the Silence.  sometimes there
would be the sounds of silence.  sometimes music.
sometimes a quiet pentecost of saints. and always the
Holiest of all Theories whispering to my heart.  Throwing
my arms and legs out, I would make a needle angel
in the cedar and breathe in regenerated life.  Then would
come rest in manifold senses, with Ultimate Rest coming in
the Sense of Wonder.

This is a ritual, rich and evanescent, along my solitary
journey until one day i shall walk out, with every
ounce of the sacramental alive in its cathedral quietude.
and I shall continue to lie down, weightless,
listening until the Holiest sings me to sleep and
carries me home.

eep

 

And there are two Emily Dickinson poems I must share with you here:

DWELL IN POSSIBILITY
I dwell in Possibility – (466)

I dwell in Possibility –
A fairer House than Prose –
More numerous of Windows –
Superior – for Doors –
Of Chambers as the Cedars –
Impregnable of eye –
And for an everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky –
Of Visitors – the fairest –
For Occupation – This –
The spreading wide my narrow Hands
To gather Paradise –
~~~~~~~~
Silence is all we dread.
There’s Ransom in a Voice –
But Silence is Infinity.
Himself have not a face.

 

Sara Teasdale, ‘Silence’

We are anhungered after solitude,
Deep stillness pure of any speech or sound,
Soft quiet hovering over pools profound,
The silences that on the desert brood,
Above a windless hush of empty seas,
The broad unfurling banners of the dawn,
A faery forest where there sleeps a Faun;
Our souls are fain of solitudes like these …

 

the SOUND Room