The fullness of silence: a contemplation

As I live in nature, I’ve been thinking increasingly about silence—mostly, because you notice it here. Absent is that background noise that underscores city life: the perpetual hum of cars, conversations spilling out of bars, pinging phone notifications, shoes clicking on the pavement, the gurgling of coffee machines, whirring modern appliances and all the barks, drills, screams, beeps and bangs that make silence in the city elusive. I have always been sensitive about noise, gritting my teeth as my neighbors’ kids roller-skate on the balcony back in Amsterdam. But in this wooded landscape, silence is an enormous presence that is patient, attentive and persistent. It asks to be witnessed.

Being triggered by noise isn’t just my imagination. I read somewhere that sirens are six times louder than they were a century ago—why is that necessary? Noise pollution—often dismissed as mere annoyance—has long-term effects we rarely consider. According to the European Environment Agency, 20% of Europeans are exposed to harmful levels of noise (from cars, rail and aircraft). Loud noise stunts brain growth, affects memory, contributes to tension, stress, disturbed sleep and in children, makes their overall comprehension plummet.

That said, country life isn’t silent. The small-scale farmers near me use chainsaws, grass trimmers, tractors, generators and pumps that generate machine noises, but only for a few hours at a time. The birds, insects and animals that live here communicate, eat, and mate, continually in motion, but the sounds they make are unobtrusive, fitting the environment. Not like beer-fueled conversations shouted from balconies followed by too-enthusiastic laughter I’ve heard in Amsterdam. Those sounds (for me, at least) arrive like a slap and are subtly disturbing, like a plea to be acknowledged within the expansive anonymity of the city.

What I am learning about silence (or perhaps it's better to call it the absence of continual noise), is that it must be consciously embraced, which is challenging. The average monkey-brained human (me included) carries noise—that bombardment of random, repetitive thoughts and the endless, internal narrative about the world and our identity— with them wherever they go. When silence or stillness greets us, we rush to fill the flat, vast emptiness. It’s too uncomfortable and even feels threatening because it squashes our intrinsic desire to be seen and heard and make noise. Lacking input, we feel insignificant and, well, dead.

I’ve witnessed many of our volunteers get itchy with this yawning quietude. After a few hours, they open Spotify on their phones and fill the empty moments with music, lyrics, thoughts or nostalgia, tuning out silence’s invitation. Or they download Netflix films in the shade, plugged into their airpods, cancelling out the more subtle sounds of nature.

Their reactions mirror a familiar pattern, even in myself. It usually takes me the entire summer to become still. After long months of holding an uninterrupted, dull internal dialogue mulling over my bad career decisions, teenage insecurities, frustrations with menopause, greying hair and a tanking libido, the gnawing frustration that our house renovations are taking too long, what losing my job means to my bank account, or wondering about my relevance in this politically polarised, technology addicted world, I have enough of all the blablablahhhhs and finally shut up.

Nature remains quiet. The land, skies and trees offer no comments or answers. Somehow, their wordless compassion encourages me to notice what is perennial and sublime, listening closely to the wind shaking the branches of our pine trees, or hearing the chirping swallows celebrate their chicks taking their first flight over our secluded valley.

For those in the city, the question naturally arises: how can we access this kind of quiet? You might be wondering if I follow some kind of practice and simply put, no. I don’t believe in ‘practices’ because that’s just me—I’m whimsical, slightly chaotic and following a regular practice makes me feel harnessed. It’s more about following a natural rhythm, a slower organic unfolding of the day. The only thing I do regularly is spend most of the day outside, without a phone, moving and engaging my senses. I swim in the river, savour homemade ice cream, and admire wild flowers—without listening to music, podcasts, lectures, or the daily news. It’s more about attuning to what is literally and physically in front of me.

The famous essayist and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, who advocated for a direct, personal relationship with nature, once wrote how being in nature lets us hear the whispers of the gods. I interpret those whispers as being the eternal wisdom of our higher selves. That self that is connected to the earth, our ancestors, the human collective, and our spiritual essence. Those whispers can only be heard in the (near) silence. Perhaps this is our first language, our breath and heartbeat.

As we sink into that silence, reflecting and becoming more mindful, letting our thoughts (begrudgingly but finally) unwind, something extraordinary happens. We take the time to gaze at the stars and the trees, to marvel at the ingenuity and beauty of the planets. We breathe. This is when we witness who we really are—not the empty void we feared, but an unfolding consciousness, full beyond measure.