Silence is communication.
As Calvino wrote that “each city receives its form from the desert it
opposes,” so is every conversation densely woven by the silences it
contrasts. Every dialogue is as much constituted of speech as of
silence, the latter having as many tones, durations and significances as
its verbal counterpart.
Silence is relational.
Its meaning is flexible and emerges from the social context it appears
in, affecting in turn the dynamics it originated from.
Silence has power.
Like the silence of meditation heightens the senses, so can
interpersonal silence enhance the understanding of the space one is in
and help to focus on who needs listening rather than what one needs to
say.
Silence is opaque.
It is the space where two or more subjects can approach and welcome each
other within their mutual otherness, without impositions.
Silence is a space for others
to be, to talk and express their ideas, feelings and needs. It is a
practice of de-centering and sitting with discomfort, a cultivation of
the willingness to transform one’s own belief.
Silence is listening-with
: seeking caring attention and involvement with the other, an active
withholding and reassembling in relation.
Silence is care
: a practice of being open and accountable to each other, recognising
mutual dependence and striving to go beyond one’s own assumption of what
the other might need or be.