I was awakened this morning by the sound of the wind blowing against the rain chain. The cat wanted out and then she wanted back in. The stove needed wood and as I waited for the fire to warm, I sat in the quiet silence of the predawn light and contemplated.
I don’t do that as much as I used to and I wondered why?
We are over stimulated. I am over stimulated.
The simple things of life have been overshadowed and buried in the electronic world of sensory overload and constant information.
We are addicts.
Sounds of a familiar tune kept going through my mind … Hear the wind blow dear, hear the wind blow.
I paused and listened to the wind. What is it that I hear? Winds of change? Winds of a coming storm? A message from Nature?
The addiction of our constant need to be informed has robbed us of the ability to listen to our inner soul.
At times that ability has shone bright and I have found comfort in the quiet reflection of life’s experiences.
Those experiences are now what I draw upon to navigate through these troubled waters.
Every where we look there is something or someone who is wanting our attention. If you open the computer there are ads designed to get our attention. Those little questions that show up on social media asking us which color or food or actor or vacation spot we would like best have all been used to create a virtual identity of ourselves.
That virtual identity is held in multiple locations and programs., It contains our buying habits our pet peeves, our interests, our likes, our dislikes, who are friends are and what we eat. We have been virtually cloned down to the tiniest detail and all this information we have volunteered freely.
It is now being used to influence and control us.
Remember that DNA swab that you sent to a lab somewhere to tell you where your ancestors came from? That lab now owns your DNA and that information can now be added to your virtual clone, and may influence the results of your next insurance application or job interview.
The smart phone is only one of the many ways that we are controlled, we are constantly detracted from listening to our own inner soul.
Smart media has co-opted our ability to sit in the silence of the moment. Sound bites and vibrations are rewards that cause us to do as Pavlov's dogs, we salivate over the next electronic interaction. Our senses are overloaded so much and so often that it is impossible to sit in silence, we have been addicted to the electronic buzz.
Holidays have been typically spent with family, sharing a meal and reflecting on life. Not so much these days. Television, videos, gaming and social media have taken the place of family time. Meals are rarely spent together at the family table and when it does happen on the rare occasion, the smart phone or devise we carry interrupts to break into family time.
Black Friday and Cyber Monday would have meant nothing to our grandparents. Our children now carry their own smart devises and phones that fill in as baby sitters. Most everything that we do and say is filtered though an electronic medium of some sort. What ever happened to face to face conversation?
The constant need to be informed has deformed our ability to sit in silence.
I keep a fire ring out in the back yard, it is my version of an original TELEVISION. I have a fire at least once a week, summer or winter. It gives me a chance to sit in silence, to look into the fire and reflect on the whirlwind of activity that flows around me.
In the quiet of the fire, I share my stories and my visions, the things that I hold dear and sacred, my insights and lessons learned from life.
This season is traditionally when we give thanks for the blessings that we have.
This season I give thanks to the sounds of the wind and to the sound of silence.
I give this gift to you …
