The sound of solid silence

Being here in Moremi has provided me a strong encounter with nature and mother earth. Sitting in camp alone the other day, alone for the first time since march 1st, I sat wide eyed, on total alert and aware of everything. Completely plugged into the universe. I heard for the first time the sound of silence. It nearly struck me to the ground, so strong was the pressure. I felt so insignificant, so little, just a speck in the wilderness. Then a quiet tone from the depth of myself began to fill me up, and slowly the sound within  made me feel alive and strong again. I’ve read that what you hear when absolutely still is your life song. It made me feel so immensely alive yet appallingly alone, and in the same time in communion with some other mighty powers. They say that what you hear in absolute silence is that the high sound your nervous system, and the low sound is the roar of your blood pulsing through your veins. Perhaps it is my thoughts screaming by faster than I can think them. Or the reminiscing bells of far away, long ago, and what could have been done differently. And I wonder if my father can hear my thoughts. Can he hear the song I sing to the stars at night, and if I close my eyes can he hear my thoughts as they work back to him and I tell him I am cold and afraid in a big world I can’t understand, torn by my recent history the loss of him. Can he hear the dry scratch of a leaf across a square mile of sand in the kalahari desert where no feet will tread over today? I was quickly jolted by the sudden awareness of another layer in this silence, the entire orchestra of activity around me, the scrabbling of creatures, the song of the birds, the creak and bend of branches and the swish and sway of the dry grass as the wind blew over them, of course the baboons, and the stark realization that there is no absence of sound, but indeed solid silence.


It was then that I fully understood that nothing stands still, nothing is ever silent. The universe is always vibrating. Intuitively we know this, but I think we often forget because for the most part in most of our daily lives, when are we actually really still to realize this? Even here in the middle of the african bush surrounded daily by beauty and an awe inspiring environment, we still manage to get so caught up in out daily lives here with no T.V, no media messages that threaten to fracture and distort our collective perception of life , not even a box of breakfast cereal to scream it’s seductive desires at our impressionable minds, nowhere is that need for mass consumerism. Yes, even here without all those normal distractions, (or pehaps an easy excuse) we still go about our jobs and forget to stop and smell the “roses”. I am amazed by this. I am startled by this observation. I am still green, so every sunset stops me, though I will admit as time goes on I too have become engrained in what needs to get done next that my pause has become shorter and more fleeting, ashamedly so. As I watch the others, Graham for example, rush around in a hurry to “get it all done”. A days work. Never stopping to take in the sunset, or sunrise, or ele’s in camp, without a camera in front of his face. I had a chat with him, and later the same day when more ele’s came through camp, I made him sit and enjoy them without a camera. We work the life we love and love our work. But what is the point if you never stop to enjoy it? We could all do with a pause. Our world is saturated with unnecessary noise.

We went out the other morning and for the first time I heard the baritone performance of the ground hornbill. It was one of the most wonderful sounds I’ve heard here or anywhere for that matter. It was early morning and aside from their song the rest of my world was still and quite. It would now seem to me the mystery lies in the nature of the silence. This silence that comes from fullness and joy- a silence because there are no words that are sufficient.