Silence, Presence, Creativity

I write to fellow travelers, who, like me, are wending their way into the living heart of silence…to women and men of all ages from far and wide, who are drawn to an inner stability that is not subject to the tempest of these times…  to those opening their lives to a creative force awaiting expression just behind chaos and disturbance.  I offer a few stories (out of untold myriads that could be highlighted) about ways an abiding ocean of latent potential, born in silence, folds out into this world. May they ignite real, out-of-the box, possibilities in a serious time that is in need of healing waters and life-giving creativity flowing freely.

For 15 years Peri Chickering and I have hosted monthly days of silence as a foundation for personal centering and as an initiation point for meaningful lives.  Hundreds joined us. As planetary distress intensified at the beginning of 2024 we followed the urge to shift this rhythm into a daily pulse of silence in service to the well-being of all kin and the earth. Thus was born the Well Keepers community. Three hundred and sixty days were easily spoken for by people from all the continents who signed up on our website to sit by the headwaters of the spring.  The only requirement was time in silence in the spirit of tending the wellspring of life.  Whatever that meant to them. Most let a meditative focus of stillness flow into an unstructured day, following the impulses that arose. Every day in 2024 was cared for by someone who intuitively understood the responsibility. At the end of their chosen day, the well keeper passed the mantle of tending to the person who had signed up for the next day, via an email note.

The connections crisscrossed the planet.  The remarkable thing, other than the great eagerness to be part of this, was the unique ways each person fulfilled the opportunity. As the momentum steadied and people got the gist of well tending, a steady, tangible life-giving movement began to spill from the wellspring.  We designed a place for well keepers to share their experiences on our website, where we post photos and poetry and the music that tumbles out of the fresh waters.  This year we have evolved into Silent Sundays only wherein a self-selected cadre of well keepers hold the weekly beat collectively.  Descriptions of our experiences dance together on our Reflections page, which is open for anyone to visit or join. Stunningly beautiful accounts amplify a unified tone and a common reverence for life that has grown over the months and years. It is a never-ending prayer.  Anyone drawn to participate is welcome to The Well Keepers.

Another stream flowing from that well has to do with the power of presence.  I have a friend, Anne Dosher, now an ancestor, who took time every night to “put the day to bed.” This is an Anglican practice with Jesuit associations that was taught to her by her vicar when she was 5 years old. Straight through to her nineties, nightly, when Anne laid her head on her pillow, she scanned the day, beginning with most recent events and working backwards to her waking.  With each vignette that came to mind she said “Thank you” and paused in the quiet.  Anne was always learning from her daily encounters, and always returning the substance of her living to God.

Anne also started her days bowing to the dwelling place of being. The very first thing in the morning she walked barefoot into her backyard where she stood quietly, turning slowly in a circle, honouring the Creator of All and blessing the unfolding day. She specifically brought to heart people she knew who were in need.

 Later in life, after decades of professional experience with large systems change, the Chief Administrative Officer of San Diego County asked Anne to join an advisory group charged with sorting out what the local press called “the County in Chaos”.  The group thought of Anne as a “thinking partner.”  After she retired, they asked her if she would remain with them to sit in on particularly difficult meetings. They called her the “elder consultant” though she rarely spoke, and never advised.  The group counted on what they called Anne’s “blessing presence.”  They were fully aware that the quality of their deliberations and subsequent actions were transformed because Anne was simply in the room. The generative power of Being, based in her deep invisible practices of many years, affected the lives of millions in a markedly positive way.

Anne Dosher

Lastly, I write about a great and unexpected avenue into the fertile realm of origins that lives within silence.  This surprising route is a sacralized experience of endings.

My friend, Sarah-Jane Menato, and I discovered that we “fall into place” in profound ways when space and time is protected at the time of endings. Western society typically celebrates the beginnings of new cycles and seasons.  We love when babies are born, or the bounty of summer ripens, or the promise of new relationship is honoured. It is far less preferable or polite to name losses, the things that are over.

We live in a time when familiar systems, structures, climate patterns, and invisible assumptions about life are creaking, cracking and collapsing.  A pervasive cultural pressure asks us to show up daily to fix things or tough them out. What if we can’t?  What if willful rising to the occasion compromises inner wholeness, needed rest, and above all entry into the peace that flows out of a deep pause that honours that which is ending.

In simple, well-supported ritual we found, embedded in this pause, solid ground for relaxation, new thought and language, an enduring trust in life, and a greater will beyond our own heroism.

We meet quarterly on Zoom, each time with a slightly different process.  We always began in silence together. In small groups we each tell a story of one thing ending in our lives, and share what it feels like. We listen with utmost respect. We silently hold one another. We never console one other. Often, though, we cry together. When we return to the whole group, each is invited to describe in essence that which is ending for them, how this registers in their body, and what part of their identity is surrendering in the ending. Participants let go of homes, of country, of children, of health, of hope, of youth, of assumptions about the future, of cherished beliefs, of friendships, of dreams, and more.

After each account, there is simply space, a quiet bow from others, then more space in the reverberating silence.  Everything slows down.  Reliably, something “other” begins to happen in the space between words spoken.  In the depths of the dark, the tender action of the silence begins to work on that which is being laid to rest and the one who softens their grip on certainty.  It often feels like placing a loss on a sacred altar.  At the same time, slowly, a strange new ground of being, devoid of form, begins to collect. We never try to explain the alchemy which enters in, but everyone feels it.  Comfort and reassurance seep into the sadness and fear.

After each one has offered their experience of an ending into the centre, we again sit in silence, this time fully aware of a thickening, enfolding atmosphere.  And a change.  In the closing, surprising words find their way out of the depths. What slowly arises is often light-filled and original, laced with laughter, issuing from a very different sense of self. Always surrounded by more silence. This experience ripples into our lives.

Could it be that the rising tide of endings is lovingly engulfed in the rising time of Love?

I leave you with an image of a painting hanging in Peri’s sanctuary of contemplation.  I called it the Vessel of Stillness, not because of the image, but because of the place in me from which this painting emerged. One stroke of paint suggested the next, and the next.  When a colour or line didn’t feel right, I waited for another incitement from within, and began again.  It is utterly amazing to me that we are endowed with a tuning fork that recognizes a gesture or a mark or a word that is life-giving and enhances the whole.  The process of creating from silence seems to leave a hidden trail leading home.

“Vessel of Stillness”, by Barbara Cecil

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