Shamanic Healing Salve: Silence

"In the sweet territory of silence we touch the mystery. It's the place of reflection and contemplation, and it's the place where we can connect with the deep knowing, to the deep wisdom way".

Angeles Arrien in The Millionth Circle


The Shamanic Healing Salve or "medicine" of the West is Silence. In modern times, we have in many ways lost this sacred and very important healing modality, lost to the rush, rush, rush of every day life. The busyness or business of our lives seem to leave little time for contemplation, for soul moments when we may listen to the voice of our own hearts. There are so many things to do as well as so many things to think about!

Indigenous cultures not only honor silence as part of their way of life, but they set aside time for silence with solo time in nature. From the time children are quite small, they are encouraged to listen to the sounds of nature without intrusion, learning the lessons of the cycles of life through the intrinsic changes of season which include birth, fertility, full flowering, decline, death, and rebirth. They watch and learn.

So many of us have forgotten the ways of peaceful silence.

In his haiku on silence, poet James Traverse says:

Silence speaks volumes

without uttering a word

nothing is unsaid

Take a few moment today to enjoy the sweet fullness of silence...