The author has struggled for decades to achieve deep interior silence through meditation but has found that true silence cannot exist where fear resides. Fear is embedded in the body from past experiences and prevents silence. The quest for silence is futile until one addresses and cleanses themselves of fear. Recently, the author envisioned silence not as a horizontal blanket over them, but as a vertical blanket wrapping around them to keep out noise and temptation, creating a chamber for attentiveness to their authentic self and soul. By removing fear and wrapping themselves in this vertical blanket of silence, the author believes they can better engage in the soul silence they seek, similar to the silence found in divine places.

1. SILENCE
Silence seems to be one of the key ingredients in meditation, contemplation and the
advanced spiritual life. But for the most part it baffles and eludes me.
For many decades now I have struggle to establish that deep silence within, that which I
encounter sometimes in nature; when walking outside in the wee hours of the morning or
during a snow fall which provides the earth with the natural blanket of silence. For the
most part however, my efforts have failed to produce the deep interior silence I desire.
And this is what has occurred to me, that true interior silence cannot reside where fear
lives. I am plagued with fear to such a degree that it is part of my breathing and I can’t
even see it operating in my life.
The deep silence that I seek, is, I believe the residual sound of a soul at peace. Fear,
which is embedded in our bodies from an experience or expression of the past, is not
compatible with silence. And so, the search for silence is futile till we address the fear
and cleanse ourselves to be fully disarmed from the psychological limits fear imposes. In
this quest I have invited God into this process, to help me be released of fear, to allow
space for the silence to grow.
I have envisioned that attaining silence was like having a blanket laid over me
horizontally. It would then muffle all the other rattling and noises
in me. But recently I have had a different way to see this blanket of
silence. Rather than laying over me horizontally, I envision this
blanket of silence wrapped around me, vertically. Keeping all the
noise and temptation of the outer world at bay and creating a
chamber for me to be attentive and quiet to my authentic self. This
vertical blanket of silence feels less like a barrier and more like a
container to reverence all that is within me, now allowing myself to
hear and be attentive to my soul, the divine.
Now by removing fear and wrapping myself with a vertical blanket
of silence, I am much more able to engage in the soul silence I long,
a likened to any silence found in the tabernacle of the divine.
Kathleen McCauley
January 2020