Spirit in Action
Listening Below the Noise: The Transformative Power of Silence - Anne LeClaire
Anne LeClaire is an author whose 20 years of twice-monthly days of silence taught her the potential for rest, healing and growth of the practice. She shares the lessons of the experiment-turned-way-of-life in Listening Below the Noise". She leads workshops and retreats on silence, creativity and authenticity, like the program she'll lead on March 23-24 at the Franciscan Spirituality Center in La Crosse, Wisconsin.
- Broadcast on:
- 18 Mar 2012
- Audio Format:
- other
[music] ♪ Let us sing this song for the healing of the world ♪ ♪ That we may hear as one ♪ ♪ With every voice of every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ ♪ And our lives will feel the echo of our healing ♪ ♪ With every voice of every song ♪ Welcome to Spirit in Action. My name is Mark Helpes Me. Each week, I'll be bringing you stories of people living lives of fruitful service, of peace, community, compassion, creative action, and progressive efforts. I'll be tracing the spiritual roots that support and nourish them in their service, hoping to inspire and encourage you to sink deep roots and produce sacred fruit in your own life. ♪ Let us sing this song for the dreaming of the world ♪ ♪ That we may dream as one ♪ ♪ With every voice of every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ Today for Spirit in Action, the topic is Silence, and my guest is Ann Leclerc, author of a number of books, including Listening Below the Noise. Why is Spirit in Action program on Silence? Because I believe that Silence and its close companion, Deep Listening, can make an immense difference for peace and healing in this world. Plus, you may have an opportunity to join with Ann Leclerc for a retreat on or in silence, like the one that she's leading shortly in La Crosse, Wisconsin. But more on that later. So today, we'll attempt to listen deeply as we speak with Ann Leclerc about Silence and about Listening Below the Noise in the hope to center and improve ourselves and our world. We'll get Ann on the phone in a moment, but I wanted to start us out with a snippet of a well-known song that was part of my teen years, one more good reason to contemplate Silence. So we start with Simon and Garfunkel, Sound of Silence, and then Ann Leclerc. Hello, darkness, my old friend. I've come to talk with you again, because a vision softly creeping, left its seeds while I was sleeping, and the vision that was planted in my brain still remains within the sound of silence. Ann, it's delightful to have you here today for Spirit in Action. Well, thanks for inviting me, Mark. Got exciting news of the retreat that you'll be participating in down in La Crosse, Wisconsin on March 23rd and 24th at the Franciscan Spirituality Center. Is it correct to call that a silent retreat? It's a retreat about silence, and certainly during the Friday night, I'll be speaking Friday night and then Saturday is a day-long workshop, and during the day-long workshop we'll have periods of exploring silence by being in silence. But we'll also explore it with words and sharing about experiences of silence, why we avoid it, the value of it, and then certainly experiencing. If the weather is as lovely as it is at least today, here we might do some walking meditations, but certainly periods of that day will be in silence, but not the entire retreat. Do you experience any cognitive dissonance in talking about silence? I'm amused by it if it does seem that silence should speak for itself, shall we say, but actually it is rich to talk about and explore all the facets of silence together and then to experience it together. Is this retreat on March 23rd, 24th? Is this the kind of retreat that's where beginners or where experienced silence practitioners, does that matter? It really doesn't matter. We can always learn more. I mean, for instance, someone who has perhaps gone on silent retreats or has incorporated silence in their own lives are certainly welcome to come, and we'll find it rewarding, and people who want to know more about silence, especially today in this world where we are assaulted by noise and by activity. I think there is a soul yearning for stillness where so much work is done. We tend to think of silence and stillness as a place where nothing is going on, and quite conversely, it's a very active place, a very rich place where much can be going on. So to explore that idea of the uses of silence and stillness and what is in that space, I often equate silence with space. It creates a space in our life where we can do much work, where our bodies can be rested, where our minds in spirit can be rested, but where we can also still the noise of ordinary life, which has become so loud to hear the wisdom that is held in that space for us. You know, I'm kind of guessing that it's not appropriate to bring your iPod and your buds to this retreat. You could bring them if you want, but leave them in the car. What are the rules for a silent retreat like this? I mean, the periods of silence, is it okay to read a book instead of talking? Well, I suppose if someone wanted to, but you know, the opportunity, we're all so inundated with obligations and activities that an opportunity to just be quiet and see what's going to rise up. You know, what information is going to rise up in that space of stillness for us to pay attention to, or just to relax into and take a break from what seems to be endless onslaught. So in these silent periods, we'll be encouraged to just either walk or sit and reflect and be in that silence and take advantage of this, you know, the gift of this time for ourselves. There's not a lot of rules to it, just to befriend silence because I think we've become alienated from it and uncomfortable in large part with it. So to be together in an honoring space of silence, because I think intuitively we know that silence is an honoring space, which is why when we want to honor someone, we often say, let's have a moment of silence at a minute of silence because I think intuitively we just understand that silence is how we honor. So it's an opportunity to honor ourselves by stepping away from all that usually surrounds us to relax into silence, to talk about all of the many benefits and gifts silence can give us. We can talk about why universally in almost every religious and spiritual practice, there's usually woven in some period of silence for good reason because I think theologians, philosophers, poets, even scientists now are coming to understand the huge benefits of that space of silence and why we need it for our creativity, why it's actually essential for creativity, why we need it physiologically, what happens to our bodies when we don't have silence, why we're becoming a nation deaf or younger, why people who live on a noisy street have a higher incidence of heart attacks, the effects of noise on our life, and how silence can heal. So what should someone expect to get out of or maybe hope to get out of this one day retreat that you're anchoring? I think to be able to look at perhaps in a fresh way all the benefits of silence may be come away encouraged to weave into individual lives in some way a practice, whether it's 10 minutes a day, a half an hour in the morning, a formal half day a week or a day a week or a periodic time of shutting down the noise and being in that space because once we become truly aware of why it is necessary and the huge benefits of it, we're more encouraged to turn off the car radio for instance when we're on a drive and just relax into silence. And I think when we spend some time really understanding the benefits of it and the needs that we have for it, then it's like going to a seminar on why exercise is key for memory, mental health, physical health in so many ways we need to exercise and we're more apt to commit to it if we truly understand all the benefits. And the same thing I think we're more apt to commit or we've places for ourselves and our families of silence whether it's a walk in silence instead of having the earbuds in or getting up 15 minutes early just to sit quietly and start the day from that grounded central place. So that is a very least and I think there's also something lovely about sharing in community. I don't think that's the way who you started in silence. I've already mentioned to you in a previous conversation that I'm a Quaker so I'm used to doing silence in a group and it's got its own power. Would you care to share the story that got you started on your path to silence, that you shared in listening below the noise? Sure, I'd be happy to. I'd like to start first by saying when I was writing the book, listening below the noise, I attended several Quaker services and you're absolutely right about there being a real power in that and connective power in the shared experience of silence. I remember I was on the faculty of the Maui Writers Conference and had lectured on the need for silence and creativity one day there and someone came up to me afterwards and said it's so wonderful too that we're also connected now with all the technology. And I said I'd like to think that we're all available now. I don't think we're necessarily connected. I don't think availability necessitates we're going to be connected. But I think silence can connect us. The book for just a little background for your listeners 20 years ago, I started quite by accident what was to become a 20-year practice, formal practice of silence in that I don't speak on the first and third Mondays of every month. And in 20 years I've only broken that discipline once when I actually was in a car accident. It started one day, a gorgeous January day on Cape Cod, where I live. When I was taking my daily walk by the beach. And it was a sad day for me because my best friend's mother was dying. So I was in a very reflective and sad place because I knew I could not prevent her from experiencing the pain to come and that made me feel both helpless and sad. And I think that there were two things about that day that when I look back I think were key and one was that I was alone and I wasn't listening to music or anything. I was actually walking in a quiet reflective space. And I was very open because one of the roles of grief in our life or sorrow I think is to crack our heart open into compassion and openness. So I was in that space and I was watching two Ida ducks die and they stayed under water for so long I couldn't hold my breath as long as they were under water. Watching them in that moment I just was struck by this what seemed to me minor miracle of nature that these ducks that had lungs perhaps the size of my thumb could stay under water longer than I could hold my breath. Watching them I had a moment of gratitude and thought I'm so lucky to live here and I'm so lucky to be in this country, this beautiful country of ours and watching this beautiful event in nature. And as often happens with gratitude which is one of the reasons I think it's really good to develop. The practice of gratitude is it's like the dominoes. One expression of gratitude often leads to another and then another. So I was thinking how fortunate I was and I thought well I'm really fortunate too that I love my husband. And this moment today I even like him you know this marriage and this is a good day. And I like my kids love them and my friends and I am a novelist. I do what I love for a living. But I started to think you know even the losses and grief I've experienced in my life the disappointments all of that seemed all part of the of the tapestry of life. Everything plays a role the losses we have the you know intense disappointments and setbacks. The difficult times all of it plays a role and it's all really remarkable. And I was in this huge moment of gratitude for my life. At the same time that I was experiencing the privilege of being alive I also out in nature as frequently happens realized the minuscule role I played in the big overall. So I was feeling humbled I was feeling privileged and I said I am so grateful I don't know what to do. And a man behind me said sit in silence and I turned around and there was no one there. Every time I tell this story I'm struck again with how you know frankly bizarre it was because there was a male voice on the beach. Oh really it's bizarre to hear someone speaking out of nowhere when there's no one there. One might think a little. And no one there but the phrase just stuck in my head so I walked along the beach and I kept thinking sit in silence. What does that mean? Sit in silence. What does that mean? And as brief interview might show you I'm really comfortable speaking and talking and have been as a child a little chatter box. So it was a little alien to me to think of too but walking on my thought maybe it means just what it sounds like don't talk. So I told my husband I wasn't going to talk the next day. He was not right on board you know he didn't particularly like the idea he thought it was odd. He thought it would be inconvenient if Margaret needed me if her mother died if our children needed me. And I said do you know I know I don't know if I'll be able to do it but I'm going to try. And I did the next day and it was such a intense day of so many moments in it that were either beautiful or really rich. And then at night I was so rested and relaxed and I thought I want to do it again. And that began it and so for 20 years and that just happened to arbitrarily be a Monday. So I decided to do it two Mondays later. Then again it was just a remarkable, remarkable day. I think we miss a lot when we don't stop to just hear this information coming at us all the time from our bodies, from the planet, from other people, from our families. We're going so fast and we're living so much other in the future or past in our minds that we miss it. And in silent days I was tethered to the present in a quite remarkable way and was very alive to the moment. So that began it and as I say it's been 20 years of these silent Mondays and a while back an editor asked me if I would be interested in writing a book about my experience. And out of that came listening below the noise. So it's been 20 years since you started this. 2009 is when listening below the noise came out. So what took you so long? 20 years to get one book. I mean you've written a lot of other books in between. As you mentioned a novelist and I think you've got maybe eight or so books out there. I do. I have nine books in total. What took me so long? Well first of all, may I just am a slow writer. I process slowly. I write slowly. But I wasn't particularly interested. Well first of all the editor approached me when I was well into the years of silence. And then I wasn't particularly interested in writing a book about it. I thought it was kind of a private thing I was doing. I had a contract for a couple of novels that I needed to finish when she asked me. And I thought who cares? Who cares about my silence and what I do? But she planted this seed and I would think I'd be in a shower and I'd think about it. Well you know maybe it's kind of interesting this experience I had in silence and what that taught me. I don't know maybe someone. So I started taking notes just prompted by her request. As it turned out the university press editor who originally approached me left her job and I didn't write the book for a couple of years after that. But then my agent followed up and she kept saying when are you going to write the silence book? So when I finished my last contract for a novel I thought this was the time. And I then seriously began writing, listening below the noise. I guess I want to say up front that I loved the book. It is such a wonderful mixture. A philosophy certainly of ideas and of writings of other people about silence. But also your personal stories. You've got that mixture just right. And it's helped me go deep and I've been a Quaker for more than 30 years. And so I'm used to silence and I've experienced special times in spite of the fact that I'm my own kind of chatter box that I thought a day would be really improved by no talking. So you've led me back to something that I've experienced over the years and I just lost the threat of it. So first of all thank you. Well thank you for your kind words about the book and for having me on the show. I do know unequivocally that the practice of silence has changed my life. I know it's made me a more present person. It's made me more present to my family and friends and to myself. It's made me more reflective rather than reactive. On just so many levels it's helped me. And so since the book has come out I've been invited to do workshops around the country. And I'm loving the email I'm getting from people who have attended and then incorporated silence in their own lives. One story in particular a couple that live in Virginia decided to spend Easter in silence as a way to just actually honor that day. One of them wrote it all day long. He walked. He just spent the whole day and says and he's somewhat estranged from his mother. But in the end of the day before they had their evening Easter dinner he took a bath and in the tub he kind of slid down into the water so his ears were below the water. And it just felt so hard of that day. And when he was in the water he thought this must be what it was like to be in the womb kind of surrounded by water hearing that kind of echoey watery sound. And then felt I was in my mother's womb suddenly he felt enormously connected to his mother and had a relationship healing in that moment that he never would have come to without having been led to it by silence. And I think silence does open us to possibilities which also means it can open us to things we have perhaps not wanted to think about. Because one of the reasons we're so busy in our culture and running is to escape the more uncomfortable things too. And that's a part of silence. It stops us in our tracks and some of the discomfort can rise up. And that in itself is another kind of gift though it might be uncomfortable in the moment. It's important that we let these things rise up and look at them and be with them and know that whatever the discomfort is we can sit with it instead of running front. Instead of running from it. We're speaking with Ann Leclerc. She's author of a book listening below the noise. She'll be anchoring a retreat that's happening in La Crosse, Wisconsin, March 23rd 24th. She also does them many other places across the country. If you go to her website, annleclerc.com and that's Ann with an E at the end, you'll find her schedule and you'll find out places you can connect up with her. Of course there's many places you can connect with silence. Ann's not the only source of it. But a good place to start is to go to annleclerc.com. She'll be at the Franciscan Spirituality Center in La Crosse on the 23rd 24th. And you can find those links by my site, northernspiritradio.org. Again, this is Ann Leclerc. We're speaking with author of listening below the noise and a number of other books. You talked about your days of silence, Ann. And I was wondering what kind of rules you practiced for those days because I was kind of surprised in the book. Early on you mentioned, I think it was on the third day of silence, turning on the TV. And that didn't seem to be contraindicated to your sitting in silence type rule. So what are the rules? What does that mean to have days of silence as you practice them? Okay, well first of all I'm not a big rule person, let's just start here. So I avoid rules when I can. When I began it was such a kind of backing into silence later to approach it if you would. So I didn't have my only thought was I'm just not going to talk tomorrow. So early on my only directive to myself was not to speak. That was it. And not to like get into a lot of note writing and stuff which would just be been another kind of busyness and not that space. So it was just not to speak. And that third day I did not turn the TV on. My husband happened to have it on when I went into the room and that news it was on it was so disturbing. So for maybe the first two years at least my only feeling was I just don't want to talk on those days. I won't talk on these days from when I go to bed Sunday night to when I wake up Tuesday morning. After a while I just found silence so restful, so restorative, so rich that other noise began to feel intrusive. So I didn't want to have the TV on. I didn't even want to have music on. I just I think the monk Thomas Merton said it best. The more he experienced silence the more he came to love it. And the same was true of me. The more I spent time in stillness the more I craved it. And so then it wasn't a rule. I just didn't want other noise. I didn't want to watch TV. I didn't want to have the radio going or CDs playing or anything. I just loved the comfort of the quiet, the restorative, incredibly restorative and also creative space. I think my writing was different on days of silence and continues to be. And also there's a timeless feeling to those days, a very expansive feeling. And then as with silence there's many levels of silence as there is of noise. There's first quieting the speech but then there's quieting the external which I was doing. And along about the fourth year I found that I was the or fifth year I was beginning to quiet the internal chatter. And the monkey mind chatter. And so it wasn't this deliberate or educated or trained kind of going in and learning how to meditate or like it was just that gradually as my outer world quieted my inner world began to quiet. And if there was chatter I became aware of where my mind went. I'm much more aware on those days, much more as I say, tethered to the here and now and what was happening in the here and now. Listening below the noise is very true. They weren't days really of silence. They were days of listening. Listening to nature, listening to my own thoughts, listening to the absolute truth that lies beyond thought and emotion. Allowing space for that truth to rise up, listening to my body. They became days of intense listening in the space of silence I had created. I wonder how it would transform our world if more of us had that kind of listening going on in our lives. What do you think the world would look like differently? You know, if a lot of individuals, just a vast number of individuals are practicing this, what would the outward manifestations of that be like? Well, Mark, I ask that question a lot. What would it be like? I mean, if I felt transformed and continue to feel transformed by this practice, magnify that. If a proportion of our citizens, our country, our children would do that. Imagine for a moment if Congress had even an hour of silence. Or even if they were imposed things like after someone speaks, there cannot be a rebuttal speaker for 24 hours. You know, when we just sit and actually create an opening for someone we may not agree with is actually saying and not have to. The lovely thing about days of silence is that because I have no responsibility to respond, I actually can reflect and listen without kind of an ego attachment with having to defend or agree or disagree. Or I can just increase this lovely opening to just hear what's truly being said with no responsibility of like an ego responsibility to respond. And that actually changes interaction too. At the very least, the other person feels like they're being heard, which already starts to transform what's going on because I think so many times everyone's shouting because no one feels like they're being heard. And certainly if what is called talk radio, but I like to call screen radio, if that was toned down, if there was a day when that couldn't be on, for instance. I mean, I just think we've reached a stage of pretty much screaming nonstop in one way or another. I agree with you there and that's a very significant problem. I imagine your ego has to sit back a little bit. One of the things that you mentioned in your book is I think it may be it's an old demon for you that surfaced when you were young. You know, you're a girl in our society. Be quiet. Your voice isn't allowed in there. How's that played out for you? Yes, I think often, I mean, I think a lot of children regardless of gender are silenced for a variety of reasons. Add to that that you're a woman who has culturally been silenced and then there comes a point in life where you go, I'll be darned if I'm going to be silenced. Again, I'm going to speak and to kind of go through that and reach another place which is I have a right to speak, but I also have a right to reflect and sometimes the wiser course is to, you know, the old count to 10 thing is to wait before we reflect before reacting, create space so that it's owning oneself of a different kind of a more wise place from which to speak. It's not speaking out of defiance or out of simply the right, but out of a reflective place of hopefully more wisdom. How embarrassing or maybe awkward is it to refuse to talk to people on your silent Mondays? You know, I have to say the majority of the time, the strongest response after curiosity is simply kind of an honoring. It's very difficult for me to even think of over 20 years of time that someone has at least openly to me seemed offended or angry or put off in any way by it. It's more like I have a card I carry that says I'm having a day of silence and most people go, "Oh, when you can talk, I want to hear more about that or why you do it or what it's about." I do try to not have to go out in the world on those days, but because I have a pretty active schedule, I have taught, as I say at the Maui Writers Conference, I've taught in France, I've taught in Italy during periods when I'm having a silent day since I do it every other week. And I just mold the schedule so that it's okay that those are the days that I don't talk. I've many times had to take flights on silent days, and actually I think the best flights I have are when I'm in silence. Because all the chaos of an airport is kind of just going on around me and I'm in my own little bubble. I have a little card and I show them having a day of silence. I've actually been upgraded a couple of times. Everyone's been very honoring of it. One time a stewardess even wrote – or a flight attendant even wrote down. I showed her my card when I took my seat and she came back and handed me a card and it had all the – it was like Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, Ginger ale, orange juice, you know, all the things that you could drink. She wrote down because she didn't even want to interrupt my silence by speaking to me. It was very sweet. The biggest response I usually have is curiosity. Why do you do that? How did you begin? Is it a religious thing? Is it a spiritual thing? When did you start? Is it hard? What do you do on day? Have you ever had to break your silence? I mean, it's much more curiosity, which I think is indicative of the fact that there is some kind of yearning within us to have it so people are curious about it. Or sometimes people say I could never do that. But people have come to workshops. Something has brought them there but they're going, I don't think I could do it. And they have ended up perhaps not doing a day of silence but incorporating their life certainly patterns of silence. Lunchtime instead of going to lunch with friends, they'll walk in silence or get up early and just sit quietly in a room or before they go to bed or a meal with their family. And children, interestingly enough, are very drawn to it. We're speaking with Ann LeClaire. She's author of a book listening below the noise. Her website is Ann LeClaire.com. And she's facilitating a one day workshop around silence at the Franciscan Spirituality Center in La Crosse, Wisconsin. That's happening on March 23rd, 24th. But if you go to her site, Ann LeClaire.com, and that's Ann with me, you will find other opportunities to connect with her. In any case, practicing silence in your life can enrich it. And I think it can be part of the spirit that heals this world. I think that your comment, Ann, about what is Congress practice this? I can just see the revolution happening if we could bring this into the wider world. Certainly our political is very reactive versus reflective. And I think a lot of that is driven by media that wants responses immediately after a new event that happens, a speech that's given. There's that intense pressure for response immediately, which of course, because it's immediate, is not reflective. And if we would open a space in all of our discourse, and certainly our political discourse, and to take a moment to think, take a day to think, I'll get back to you on that. How many times, I don't know about you, but where you've been invited, perhaps it's something you aren't crazy about going to. And I'm not sure how to frame the nose, so we just say yes. Instead of saying, "Can I get back to you on that?" Again, allowing the space to reflect what is my heart calling, what is my head saying. We, as a culture, the speeding up of everything has been damaging in that way. Yeah, I think you're right. Your husband is your constant companion in the story of your experiments with silence. So he pops up pretty regularly in listening below the noise. What I want to know is, have you actually won him over? Has he taken part in this kind of a silent day stuff that you do, or other silence opportunities? He does in that he is a fisherman here on Cape Cod, and he fishes alone, so he's out on the ocean. In fact, he calls it going to church. He spends a lot of time in silence in nature, and there is something that ups the ante when you are in silence, not only in the space of silence, but in silence in our natural world. They each enhance the other. So he does spend time in silence. He was not a big fan of my silent days for the first five or six years. While he didn't ask me not to do it or anything, he would say it's very inconvenient. I need to ask you something you can't answer. I'm not crazy about it, but about the fifth year, it was a Sunday night, and I said, "Don't forget, tomorrow is a silent day for me." He said, "Your silence taught me something I really needed to know. Most things aren't that important." He said, "I've been in that thing. We have to get back to so-and-so, or someone called and wanted an answer, or I need an answer for this." Your silence taught me that most of the things I was feeling, that anxiety of needing an answer, really weren't important at all. So we live also in a time of false urgency, when everything seems to have this urgency to it, where most things, in fact, not only can wait a day, but might benefit by a day of waiting and giving that space to reflect and think. He now is incredibly supportive of it, very protective of it. Not to say there aren't days when he wants to ask me something and I can't answer. He would prefer that I could, but he is very protective of it now. He said he has learned through it as well. Which means he's educable, and that's a pretty good thing to be. Early on in your experiments with silence, the first experience you had with it was this glowing, wonderful, peaceful release. It's a wonderful, sweet description, and you do a quite good job of that in listening below the silence. Not too far in, though, you experienced, let's say, more turbulent times. Is this normal for most people? You start out in honeymoon mode with silence and then pretty soon get to whatever, the dark side of what's been hiding beneath the silence? Well, I think any new thing that we undertake, whether it's a diet, an exercise program, a program of science, is the novelty at first, and there's the excitement of the immediate kind of positive feedback from it. If it's a diet you immediately feel, "Oh, I'm completely, or I knew perhaps healthier way of eating, I'm on track, I'm going to get healthy." And then the reality of it hits, "Oh, this means that I cannot indulge in ways perhaps I had." Exercise can be that, "Oh, I'm going to really get healthy, and I love the gym." And when it turns into a lifestyle, it's the novelty has worn off and the reality sets in, that is a discipline. For me, that third day that was difficult, it was when I actually knew that I needed and wanted to do this, because something that had been bothering me in my birth family rose up and I could think about it and realize that had been kind of festering. But I was not wanting to think about it, not wanting to go there, in that silent day it came up, which was very uncomfortable, but in the end very enlightening and rewarding in its own way. And at the end of that day was when I knew I absolutely wanted to keep on doing it, that there was much there, very complicated and rich territory to be mined. Would you say that in general the silence ends up changing those relationships or immediate relationships in the usual positive way that you experienced? I mean, I think it brought you to a place of, I don't know, acceptance, forgiveness, reaching out to the other person. Sometimes the messages we get are so non-intuitive. I think as with everything in life, the intent we bring to it, and silence does create openings, and that's always the first, I think, step openings to understanding, opening of heart, opening of mind, relaxing of ego hold. And so I do think if the intent is to be in honest silence, then good does come out of it. And I also want to say there are many kinds of silence, and I think many of us have experienced kind of the punishing silence and icy silence from those, silence used as a weapon or out of anger. And I'm not talking about that kind of silence, but I think a silence that's gone into you with the intent to hold, silence to explore it, to feel the many blessings. I know other words you use than blessings and teachings of silence, that good does come out of it. I'm not saying that it's not without discomfort sometimes, but good does come out. Many years ago, Quaker Elder of the Quaker meeting I started worshiping in, she was actually speaking about sexist language and how women not being named is a way of shunning, like when you don't talk to someone, you give them the cold shoulder. And so I do see the negative side, and her point was that by not naming women in our language, by saying he, when we mean either he or she, how that could silence people in a very hurtful way. You evidently have gotten past that. Yeah, I have. I mean, there's so many subtle ways of invisibilizing people, you know. But what I have found was in silence, and because it wasn't, the intent was not to be punishing or to separate, but instead I have found sounds actually to be the bridge that has led me to connection. Because, as I mentioned earlier, one of the things we're doing in silence is listening fully and listening fully. I mean, I think all any of us really want to do from the center of our being is be seen and be heard. I think that what your elder was saying too, if you're not named, you're not in a way, you're not being seen. And if we listen to each other fully without our own agenda going on in silence, we are actually saying, "I hear you. I'm listening to you. I see you." And that is a huge, huge, connective force. One of the most powerful stories for me, at least in listening below the noise, that you shared in the book was, I think you were enthusing about silence and how wonderful it is. And you were confronted by a man from another culture where people, because of the oppressive government, oppressive culture, were forced to be silent. And he confronted you for being a privileged white woman where you could have it for fun or for enjoyment where silence is really a weapon in his experience. How do you deal with that today? Well, first of all, after initially being a bit taken aback and defensive about a Rezaire's approach, I had this, again, when he first spoke to me, I was very defensive about it. I thought he just wasn't hearing what I was saying. But fortunately, I then thought about it overnight and could seek him out the next thing. We had a beautiful conversation. And the story he had told me, which is in the book, is that he was put in solitary confinement in the Middle East as a political prisoner. Silence was a weapon that was used, and so that even though they knew when they heard the footsteps of the guards coming in their individual cells, it meant they were going to be tortured. It was almost a relief to hear the footsteps, because at least they were hearing something. And that's how much of a deprivation it was to be in that kind of silence. So it made me very aware, just as noise or sound can be hurtful to us. It can be damaging to our psyche, to our physical body. It found also as used to heal. I mean, they're now using vibrational healing and tuning forks and all to heal people. Well, silence is that same thing. It can be used to heal or it can be used to hurt. It can be used to hurt in a way that it certainly was for Rezaire. And it can be hurt in the way we've all, at some time, rather probably experienced that punishing, shunning, icy silence. Exploring that with Rezaire was very good. Also, it made me realize that because I am a middle-class white American, there's a certain privilege just inherent in that in the world. And that I needed to articulate that silence wasn't just owned by middle-class white Americans. Silence is available to everybody. And I taught for a while in a prison. I taught women in prison creative writing. And I know what they talked about the most in some of their writings one time we wrote a thing on noise. Or on the prison life was the noise. How horrible, if they could just have some quiet in jail, there was just noise, constant noise. Then I remembered some of the great writings that have come out of prison from solitary confinement. The letters from the Bourbon Tanjale, Jack London wrote one of his books when he was in prison. Nelson Mandela, I mean, silence can be a place where we reach great truth. And it's open to anyone, and perhaps the people who can most benefit from it are those that in their daily life, we still have it. And it's free, and it's available, and it's not just for people who have time in space for it. We can create it. We don't need to have a certain economical, social economical place in our culture to have it. It's available and useful for everyone. And I remember I was getting a keynote somewhere, and some man in the audience said he worked cutting trees. And he would spend his lunch time with his ear protectors on because his job was so noisy that he really needed to balance it with periods of silence. And so when everyone else was having lunch and talking, he would go off into the quiet with his ear protectors on just to let the healing silence counter the noise of his job. And I think that most of us would benefit from that. Although, you know, once your nerves get deadened enough, you can't realize how much the blessed silence you're really missing. And I think that's what you experienced by going into this day of silence, fortunately you were led into it. I did experience it and the New York Times last summer had a series about technology in our lives. And in one of the articles we talked about bringing scientists to this national forest, and I can't remember which state it was in right now, but they had to leave their cell phones and their computers and everything behind when they went in. And half of the science, the whole point was to explore creativity and silence and how the mind works. And half of them went in kind of resenting it and not believing that silence really was going to make any difference and they were resistant. And they came out, again, transformed. And one, I remember from the article, said, "Well, I have a multi-million dollar grant I'm supposed to hear about and I have to be in contact." And he was very resistant to leaving his cell phone. When he came out, they said, "How are you doing?" And if you heard about the grant, he said, "Oh, I don't know. It'll be waiting when I get back to find out." And again, it was that understanding of the false urgency we live with. And they were looking at the way the brain traces and the effect that a constant activity noise has on the way our brains work. And they work more efficiently when we don't multitask, when our brain is hardwired to do one thing at a time. And when it's allowed the rest and restorative place, it can be very creative. One more thing in the book that really surprised me when I finally encountered it. It's well along in listening below the noise that you mentioned this. Again, I've got this 30-year-plus history with Quakers, and so I associate silence, our worship base in silence. I associate it. And I think, you know, the workshop that you're going to be presenting at the end of this coming week, that's going to be at the Franciscan Spirituality Center. Silence is so present throughout so much of the world's religions and spiritual practices. And yet somehow the spirituality of it didn't hit you till many years into it. It amazed me. Well, as I wrote in the book, I guess I'm always the last to know. Because people would ask me, "Do you do this as a spiritual practice?" And I had, in my mind, thought that meant that I belonged to maybe a specific group or tradition. And out of that group or tradition, this had come. And so first of all, that's the first reason I said no. Just because it hadn't, it had just come out of that moment on the beach where I was led to it. So I assume when someone said it, "Do you do this for a religious or spiritual reason?" They meant, "For instance, are you a Buddhist or do you belong to a certain group that you practice this?" So I was saying no for that reason. But also I was resistant to label with that because religion has been so misused. I was resistant to tie it to that. And I was just kind of on a lark exploring silence and finding that it benefited me. It benefited my relationships with other people. It benefited my creativity. It benefited my body in terms of the restorativeness of those days. But as the years went on, and as the silence went deeper, and as I went deeper, and as the, whatever we want to call the voices that we hear within the voice of wisdom, the inner voice, the inner God, I gave space for that to whisper to me, to talk to me. I realized it's no mistake that every religious and spiritual tradition has time set aside for silence. It's the essence of, you know, the great theologians and philosophers and religious leaders found both the strength and the wisdom to go on. And I began to realize it was an intensely spiritual practice in the pure sense of spirit. But as always, I think to be the last to know the lessons of my life, everyone knows before me. One of the lessons of silence, you don't have to rush. It'll still be sitting there. Well, you know earlier in the interview when I said to you that I'm a slow writer, and I read this great quote, and I know I can't remember the author who said it, but he said, "Art is not a sack race." And again, we're so driven to be perfect beings, to want to excel, to be better at, and silence is in a sack race either. And transforming ourselves as in the sack race, it's about being present to our lives and being present to our work. So I find silence, as I said earlier, the tether that keeps me present in the present. It keeps me not thinking about yesterday or tomorrow, but in a way that it was to me very interesting that such a simple thing as not talking made me more present to the present moment. So in your experiments with silence, you eventually come to own the spirituality of it. Did you have religious or spiritual experiences earlier in life that you didn't want to own or that are maybe just a separate part of your life historically or currently? No, actually I grew up a Christian in the Christian faith and went to church every Sunday sang in the choir. It was a congregational sex, it was very benign, and I loved particularly the music, the sacred music. I loved the church calendar. It was nothing I ran from. I think it was more as I grew older and saw how religion could be used. It could be used to manipulate, could be used to separate. And so I kind of withdrew in reaction to that actually of not wanting to be part of something that separated people rather than be inclusive. You know, I think that we go through various periods in life when we're exploring different things, but I would say that silence again brought me home to a true sense of spirituality. Other people have the opportunity to learn more about silence. One of the opportunities is coming up March 23rd and 24th, 2012 at the Franciscan Spirituality Center in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Ann Leclerc will be there, anchoring this one day retreat on silence. It starts on Friday and it's on Saturday. You can find details and register at the Franciscan Spirituality Center website or you can go via AnnLeClerc.com. That's Ann with me or via NorthernSpiritRadio.org. You can find links in all those places. And again, Ann does plenty of these retreats. On her page, you'll find links to upcoming opportunities perhaps in your area. It's a great opportunity to drink deep and I think to do part of the healing process that this world is so much in need of. I'm thankful to you Ann for doing that kind of work to help bring us to the deep place which I think can transform our outer world. Thank you for joining me for Spirit in Action. Thank you Mark. I've very much enjoyed our conversation. And in line with our visit with Ann Leclerc about silence, I'll send you out for today's Spirit in Action with a song by Eileen McGann. She's been my guest for both of the shows I do, being both activist and a deep spirit of music. And this song is In the Silence, Eileen McGann. See you next week for Spirit in Action. Speak to me in the silence. When the sun goes down, and the water still. Speak to me of the dance of the late dawn. When your cattle dance, and your heart is filled. And listen when the trees whisper timeless songs. And know that their melodies run haunting through my sleep. Lying by the waters I drink in the stars, and know that far away in silence, I'll be drinking deep. Speak to me on the pathways through the forest. When the pine floor begins, and the small birds chide. Speak to me when the fire light jumps and sparkles. And the glowing dees, throw your soul inside. And listen when the trees whisper timeless songs. And know that their melodies run haunting through my sleep. Lying by the waters I drink in the stars, and know that far away in silence, I'll be drinking deep. Speak to me in the silence of the forest. And far away in the silence of the forest, I will hear you. The theme music for this program is "Turning of the World", performed by Sarah Thompson. This Spirit in Action program is an effort of Northern Spirit Radio. You can listen to our programs and find links and information about us and our guests on our website, northernspiritradio.org. Thank you for listening. I am your host, Mark Helpsmeet, and I welcome your comments and stories of those leading lives of spiritual fruit. May you find deep roots to support you and grow steadily toward the light. This is Spirit in Action. With every voice, with every song, we will move this world along. With every voice, with every song, we will move this world along. And our lives will feel the echo of our healing.