In Silence you can hear your Soul whisper

Here we are back in lockdown, where we are all exhorted to stay at home, behave ourselves and wash our hands, and only allowed out to forage for food or take some exercise.  How eerie is it to walk down our own street and not hear a car, a dog barking, a plane overhead or even the idle chatter of children?  How quiet everywhere is, how strange and occasionally scary and we remember back to the beginning of lockdown and the first time we experience such quietness.

This was not how we lived, for everywhere we went we were surrounded by noise, muzak in lifts, instructions at railway stations, disembodied voices on buses telling us where the next stop was, car drivers sharing their dodgy taste in music with us as they drove past, horns hooting, children shouting, builders grappling with scaffolding and road workers digging and drilling while protecting their own ears (not ours) with sound mufflers.  For many it became second nature to have further noise going in our heads with our earphones providing our own taste in music, teaching us Spanish or economics, lecturing us with improving podcasts, amusing us with comedy shows or simply making calls.  Perish the thought that we should be anywhere without the comfort of sounds around us, too often to protect us from our own thoughts.

And then came lockdown and so quiet we could hear our own breath and  gradually alongside it birds twittering – sounds we only ever heard when David Attenborough was instructing us.  We gradually got used to the beat of our hearts, the rustle of leaves and the steam rising from something on the hob.  We began to learn new music and new rhythms so that when lockdown first finished we became fearful of the noises around us – cars in the next street, the whizz of a scooter behind us and the unaccustomed clink of glasses as we passed the local pub.

Many were thrilled that the sounds of life had returned…others like me, were saddened. I remember fondly one morning during the first lockdown when I determined to walk through London, the city where I live, to see it as it is, but without people, cars, vans or lorries indeed without the mechanics of 21st century life.  It was a truly beautiful experience to walk main thoroughfares – Regent Street, Oxford Street, Piccadilly – when nobody else was there. It was astonishing to visit places I had never really looked at as I rushed through them and across them – St James, Pall Mall, Covent Garden, the Strand – I had forgotten what they looked like, but the peace and silence of their emptiness forced me to really look at them. As I walked back home across parks and gardens, other people emerged to walk and play, I hardly noticed them as my mind and spirit had been quietened by the morning’s expedition – I had reminded myself how important silence is.

I always knew silence was vital to me and my wellbeing and often joked that noise was the only thing that could drive me mad – especially when hearing road works at close quarters.  I had learnt that early in my working life when organising a photographic shoot in Egypt…and in order to get away from the chatter, noise, whining of models, complaints from hairdressers and photographers I would simply grab my hat and walk into the desert and sit for enough time for the silence of the desert to enfold me.
If you have never heard the silence of the desert – it is a revelation – it is so quiet you can almost hear it, while at night it is all encompassing like a thick velvet cloak.  Little wonder that hermits and prophets, seers and madmen have chosen to spend time in the desert to still the mind and concentrate on the SOUL.