I just finished this book,
Listening Below the Noise: The Transformative Power of Silence, by Anne D. LeClaire. I was especially wanting to like it because I bought it on the Cape last weekend with my girlfriends. And I did like it. In the book, she describes her practice of keeping silent for two days each month. She writes about feeling selfish for wanting to have solitude and silence, wondering if it hurts her family and friends, which resonates for me. I just love being alone so much. I also wonder what would come up to the surface if I went on a silent retreat, or just tried to set aside a certain time to be in silence. It's really intriguing to me. I also love that the epigraph is from May Sarton, whose journals I've been reading lately too, and that throughout the book she referred back to
The Secret Garden, one of my childhood favorites.
I think it is amazing and admirable that Ms. LeClaire is able to practice silence for two full days a month. On the other hand, I feel that it is a step back for women. We have been silenced for so long, and in many parts of the world women are still forced to remain silent while the opposite gender freely voices their thoughts/opinions/concerns. I'm not a feminist, but I think that there are a great deal of women who would think of Anne D. LeClaire as unappreciative and ungrateful. She has the freedom to make herself heard while there are other women who will never know what it is like to speak in front of others or to have somebody listen to what they have to say. I wonder what Susan B. Anthony would have to say about a woman choosing to silence herself... or even the great Queen Elizabeth I. You know how much I like her ;)
ReplyDeleteHayley Samela -- look how wise you were even as a teenager!
DeleteI think this is a great point, and she actually addresses it in her book. She tells about her reaction to someone at a retreat who questioned exactly what you did. At first she was very defensive, but then realized that as a middle-class white American woman, she did need to acknowledge the shadow side of silence and recognize that she could make a choice to be silent because of her particular situation in the world. Thanks for commenting H!
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