Natalie Goldberg Card #4
“This is my wish for you: that you take these cards, grab the topic on one side and write, write, write . . . Remember no good or bad. Just words on the page.” Natalie Goldberg. Each card in this world-renowned author and zen teacher’s Deck contains a writing topic on one side and a short lesson on the reverse, delivered in Natalie’s honest, heartfelt urgency. I’m going through them one by one.
Today, the ‘nudge’ is this: “What is silent? Make a list of 30 things that are silent.”
What objects of mine are silent? Basically everything, if you don’t count the conversations I have about them. Or with them.
My bowl of oatmeal is silent. It makes no sound until I put a spoonful in my mouth and chew. Now, sound. The crunch of the nuts. The softer squishy impact of molars on raisins. The liquifying food, deftly moving from one side of my mouth to the other, and back, and forth — and then that satisfying completion, the sound of my throat pulling the food into the rest of me.
All of that. But was the oatmeal itself really “silent?”
Here are some of the meanings I found for the word “silent.”
Still.
Free from noise,
unspoken,
making no mention,
not widely or generally known or appreciated…
