A Soft Silent Sound

I thought I knew what silence was. I had sat before in the forest of Seattle and listened to the quiet there. The only sounds the cracking of twigs and the scurrying of creatures. I had sat before n the park outside my house in the absolute dead of night. The only sounds the humming of the lampposts and the distant whir of engines passing every now and then. The sounds were soft, but not silent.

In Kings 19, there is a passage about the prophet Elijah. As he was fleeing for his life from the cruel king, he was told by an angle to go to Mount Horeb where he would meet God. On the mountain there was a great wind, a great earthquake, and a great fire, but God was not in any of them. Then, following these immense powers, there was a soft, silent, sound, and in that sound Elijah received his council.

I did not know silence until I went to the Negev
The Silence was audible. Tangible. Present.

The dessert stretched endlessly in every direction when we first arrived, burning hotter than any place we had visited before. Shortly after our arrival, we dispersed for silent meditation. I found a spot perched precariously on an outcropping of rock just above the valley that our party surrounded. I was farther out that anyone else. I crossed my legs and placed my forearms palms-up on my knees. I breathed the dessert in and out of my lungs following its progression down into my diaphragm, lower into my belly, up my spine and into my chest, then out in as slow and steady a stream as I could manage.

I could hear my breath in my lungs and hitting the back of my throat. I could hear my heart beating in my chest and temples with its heavy, dense pulse. I could hear the wings of a bird a hundred feet above my head. I could hear the teachers whispering to each other on the other side of the gorge. But mostly, I heard absolutely nothing. The lack of sound rang in my ears, a high pitch buzz of nothingness was being played in my head in insistent testimony from my brain that my ears must, in fact, be hearing something. The silent sound was only interrupted by the occasional whisper of the dessert. The click of a rock of the flutter of a fly.

I worked to clear my mind. I was absolutely still.

I was so still that a persistent fly took interest, curious about the invader in his patch of rock. He landed on my arms and my legs. In a moment I recall with a fair dose of pride and only a pinch of disgust, he even landed on my eyelid. Staying perfectly still even as he probed my face, my eye did not flutter and he stayed in place before venturing off unprovoked to explore elsewhere.

I was not sad to be rid of his insistent buzz. I was just short of pure emptiness of thought.

*clack*

someone had kicked a rock into the gorge, a nuisance, but passing.

*clack*

Again? I wished they would stop shifting. They didn't have to meditate but silence was the whole point.

*clack*

What the hell? Was someone throwing rocks? I turned my head to my left towards the noise. My neighbor of about a hundred feet was lounging uneasily. She swatted at an invisible fly around her head in exasperated irritation and picked up a rock. No, she wouldn't purposefully throw a rock into the canyon would she? That would destroy the whole point! The silence would be-

*clack*

...Really? Why? Why would you purposefully ruin such a beautiful moment?

*clack*

Again and again she threw rock after rock after rock after rock into the god damned valley. My cheek began to twitch uncontrollably every time I heard that god awful noise rattle around the desert and into my skull. How dare she? I just couldn't get past it. No matter how hard I tried to surpass the physical distraction, with each new stone falling to the ground I boiled up a little more inside. After the twentieth rock I was angry. Distracted and fully sucked into her little play for attention. I couldn't help but wish her ill no matter how hard I tried to purge thought from my head.

By the fortieth rock I was freely moving my head from side to side. Pleading to our neighbors to pass along some message to this girl who refused to look at me. When I made rare eye contact I would shake my head, no, no, no. Nothing worked. I had pulled myself out of my concentration and replaced it instead with this horrid obsession with this girl throwing rocks.

By the fiftieth rock I nearly spoke up. Barely holding myself back from descending to her level and breaking the silence even further. I had reached the conclusion long ago that I should pity her that she was so unbelievably insecure that she needed affirmation of peoples attention even during this, a sacred moment. Still, I couldn't find pity, only disgust. I was furious at her. I was furious at myself. I was giving her exactly what she wanted, regardless that she didn't even know. She had my attention one hundred percent.

after a short time, I managed to reach at least some level of peace again. Still, my cheek twitched each time the noise was struck again, but with closed eyes and stillness in my body I was able to achieve at least partial tranquility. Unfortunately, just a few minutes later, Akiva began a quiet song

"return again, return again, return to the land of your soul..."

and when I opened my eyes, people were muttering between themselves and edging back to the meeting place. The meditation was finished. I stood and walked back abruptly. Then sat in the circle with the same perfect posture I had maintained for the past half hour. I couldn't resist from passive aggressively staring, without visible contention, at my adversary who, when making occasional eye contact, would shift uncomfortably and look away. Again I gave her the attention she so desperately craved.

Akiva said a few words and we packed up to go. I had, at least for a while, discovered silence. I had heard the soft, silent sound of God. I would not let go of my spite for the girl for another two days. At least it passed.

The desert left me open. In the desert, I discovered a love for silence. In the caves, I discovered a love for darkness. In the dorms, I discovered an appreciation for solitude. Like I said to Daniel, as both good and evil are crucial to each others existence, so to is company and tranquility.