Silence Is So Loud

Silence is loud.

Have you ever stepped outside and really listened?

The crickets never stop singing. Lizards dart through the grass. A fly buzzes past your ear. Leaves brush against one another as the wind moves through them. Nature is filled with sound, yet somehow it still feels quiet.

Then there is the silence inside a home.

The air conditioner hums before shutting off. The walls settle. Footsteps echo from another room. Something taps on the roof. The smoke detector lets out an occasional chirp. It is a different kind of silence—one made of tiny noises we almost forget are there.

Even movement has a volume.

Watch a child move across a room. They may not make a sound, yet every gesture, every glance, every shift in direction is loud through our peripheral vision. Presence doesn't always need noise to be felt. Sometimes movement speaks louder than words.

It makes me wonder how much of life we're actually missing.

Do we really know so little? Or has there always been an innate knowing within us?

From the moment we're born, we're taught what to think. Books teach us. Teachers teach us. Emails remind us. The media tells us what matters. Society shapes our attention. Slowly, we become occupied by thought.

But before all of that...

Weren't we simply mammals existing within nature?

Yet we are also divine.

Perhaps the deepest truths aren't learned at all. Perhaps they're remembered. There is an innate wisdom within us that notices before it explains, understands before it speaks, and feels before it thinks.

Maybe real knowing isn't found in endless thinking.

Maybe it's found in paying attention.

In hearing the crickets.

In noticing the silence between sounds.

In watching movement without needing an explanation.

I caught myself today trying something differently. It wasn't the conventional way. I didn't know if it would work, but another thought quietly appeared:

What if it does?

That was enough.

So I tried anyway.

Sometimes we spend more energy worrying about the outcome than it would take to simply begin.

What if silence has been speaking all along, and we've simply been too occupied to hear it?

Until next time, my Vines.

— A. Vale