Those Unheard are Sweeter...PART 2

He said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.”

Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind.

After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. 

After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire.

And after the fire came a voice of gentle quiet. 

When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.

1 Kings 19:11-13

ואחר האש קול דממה דקה תמן קאתי מלכא

A voice of gentle quiet--in it, the King comes...

                                 ---Zohar

 Inside this new love, die.
Your way begins on the other side.
Become the sky.
Take an axe to the prison wall.
Escape.
Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.
Do it now.
You’re covered with a thick cloud.
Slide out the side.
Die, and be quiet.
Quietness is the surest sign that you’ve died.
Your old life was a frantic running from silence.

The speechless full moon 

comes out now.

                              ---Rumi

Nothing in all creation is so like God as stillness.

                                ― Meister Eckhart

There are many different types of silences in the world.


There is the silence of strangers that find themselves in close proximity to each other, but do not want to communicate. 

We call these awkward silences.



Then there is the silence of the simple and the shallow, who after some conversation have run out of things to say, or are at a loss to find anything at all to contribute.    

These are empty silences.


Friends or family that enjoy each other's company do not always talk. They don't feel the need to.

They enjoy a comfortable silence.


One trying to convey a profound thought will at times find it difficult to do so. The words with which to express the profundity elude him. Or at times, the chaos of emotions broiling within are too intense for words to facilitate their being shared.

A frustrating silence results.


None of these are as harsh as the silence of the lonely soul, the person who has ostracized himself, or has been ostracized from the company of men. He who cannot seem to find a true friend, who even in a crowd feels alone, who suffers from the inability to find the pleasure of deepest expression to another kindred mind and heart and spirit.     

He is doomed to experience a painful silence.      


But then there is the sweetest silence. The silence of two people that share an essential bond. The infinite silence of soul mates that do not need words to convey their essences to each other. The unheard sweeter melody of love that is not just a romantic, wistful, imaginary dream to which Keats referred, but is indeed the melody that is the stuff of life itself, the melody that remains unheard not because of fear of disappointment, but because the resounding roar of the essential bond is "a voice of gentle quiet". The speechless full moon comes out now.

This is the silence of lovers.[1]

                                                                                                          

On Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, we must become God's lover.

The shofar does that....

---

[1] According to Jewish law (Halacha), speech is actually forbidden during the marital union.

Words like violence
Break the silence
Come crashing in
Into my little world
Painful to me
Pierce right through me….

Words are very unnecessary
They can only do harm

Words are meaningless
And forgettable

Enjoy the silence

                  --Depeche Mode

TO BE CONTINUED....