Savouring the Silence of Solitude

Life is da bubbles... 

Ó 2012 Currie Silver, Wee Cottage Wonders

Danielle LaPorte has something she calls ANSWER THE BURNING QUESTION and I've only recently learned of it. 

There was a time when I would ask a question at the end of my daily Gratitude. I think a large part of the reason for DOing so was to ensure some meaningful engagement with others. I'd been living solo awhile and my conversations with Gracie are, well, sometimes exhausting, since I am the only one of us who uses words...

However, Now I love my Solitude and its Silence is something I savour. This painting is actually a detail of a larger painting I have been working on. I often think in lyrics when I am painting or fiddling with my art digitally. Perhaps this is due to my almost always having music on here in the Wee Cottage, and yet...

Lately I have been noticing the sweetness that is quiet. I am able to hear my own heart beating and sometimes, for no reason whatsoever, I see Silence sitting BEside me. As a friend would. If a friend could fit inside this tiny cottage, that is!!

I am surprised that I have made friends with this "thing" I used to abhor. That I am more likely to BE marinating in quiet [save for the air conditioner coming on when it chooses to] than lost in music, an audiobook, or some other noise distraction.

It is Silence that awakens both the artist and the writer inside of me. It makes a space for me where I fit "just right." That is BEyond delicious. I have long felt I needed to apologise for taking up the space I DO. For BEing.

Danielle shared 11 wonderful quotes for this Burning Question, all of which speak to me in resonant ways. However, this one, 

In Silence there is eloquence. Stop weaving and see how the pattern improves.~ Rumi 

speaks to me most deeply.

The past 6 years, for me, have been [and still are] all about Letting Go, then Letting Go Some More. It is through my willingness to make space for Letting Go that I have found the friends I have, in Silence as well Solitude...

My "relationship" TO Silence has BEcome one that I have WITH it rather than the one I used to have... fighting against it. Avoiding it. Disrespecting it. Filling it over-full of noisy chatter and distraction.

We're still in pretty much the honeymoon stage, Silence & I, and yet already I can see that I'm over the moon with it. The funny thing is, Now that we've "found" one another, I canNOT imagine what all my avoidance and resistance were about.

How about YOU?! Where does Silence stand with YOU, in Your Life, Now? 

Very grateful I am, for Danielle LaPorte's Burning Question http://www.daniellelaporte.com/burning-questions-series/whats-your-relationship-to-silence/, for Jess Morrow of Invincible Summer http://jess-morrow.com/2012/06/01/whats-your-relationship-to-silence/ who got my attention through writing about it on HER blog, and for this BE Currie blog of MINE where I am coming out to play in all sorts of ways, little by slowly, discovering the breadth and depth of its possibilities.

[I am still learning how-to link and link-back and what have you, so this is why I have those big honkin' links instead of the nice pretty ones I see elsewhere. I'm willing to keep DOing it wrong until I get the knack of DOing it right. Any help with that would BE much appreciated!!!]