The Season of Silence

With the arrival of the Winter Solstice (December 21, 2013), we entered the Akbarian season of silence: a season dedicated to the conscientious attempt to wean oneself of the aimless chatter of the self.

According to Ibn 'Arabi, w'al-samt yawarith ma'rifat allah ta'alla ["silence bequeaths knowledge of god most high"], Hilyat al-Abdal.

The practitioner of this discipline strives during the winter months to speak less, listen more and, in the process, open the heart to new possibilities that the noise of the street drowns out.

The noise of the street (and of the flat screens that echo it) is unconsciously internalized and, along with it, the anxieties of those who have chosen busyness (business) over the peaceful stillness to be found in what Dante called "the deep lake of the heart."

The search for that lake is best pursued in silent moments stolen from the everyday--and wordlessly returned to it.

Take refuge in the Kabir Karakhana and work in silence:

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech...