I Call the Noises Silence

Having written about the stones of time in the river, I revisited Annie Dillard’s Teaching A Stone To Talk. The story itself springs from an eccentric who is literally “training” a stone as one would a dog or a horse. But that exercise observed by Dillard becomes the prompt for a meditation on noise and silence and language. 

Dillard takes us through a litany of “noises” in nature and in Scripture. Hills speak, valleys comfort, winds whisper, stones cry (Habbukuk). Whales breach, birds sing, and even the smallest of pebbles rumble when moved by tides in community.

She pronounces “I call these noises silence.” 

I feel myself breathing more freely and deeply. I notice a sigh of relief. My soul says yes. 

Yesterday, in the aftermath of a tornado when I was absorbing news of restored electricity taking days, no gas, tremendous heat, and simply feeling like I did not have the capacity to endure, I felt a panic. Then I walked the dogs, I lit some candles and sat in the cooling evening on the porch and witnessed the sunset. I noticed not just pinks and purples but greys of varying intensities. 

Greys....with a tinge of blue.

Usually I am drawn to the other end of the color spectrum but not now. Shades of light might teach me something. They certainly calmed me. 

So I noticed the effect of these hues and all became very still. Until a candle offered the slightest sizzle and the crickets said amen.

I had come full circle through human language on Eversource Power Company recordings which frazzled me to sunset and cool breeze and candlelight and grey/blue which calmed me. These noises were the silence. The silence of new possibility.