It has been said that silence is golden, that it is best not to speak ‘unless you can improve the silence’. But when does silence become a liability? To ourselves, to others, to the environment, to consciousness as a whole?
When does our silence, our inability or unwillingness to speak, become tacit agreement? How many things could have been different across time if those who remained silent had instead chosen to speak? How many wars could have been prevented? How many atrocities could have been stopped? How much planetary destruction could have been averted?
And here we stand once again, at a crossroads in time and the many remain silent. There is a variety of reasons why people do not speak up, but the reasons all boil down to fear. Fear of standing apart – from the crowd or the prevailing norm, fear of being ostracised from the group, of being seen to be weird. Fear of loss – of position, possibly of income, of friends, of influence, sometimes of life and limb. Fear of being wrong – in one’s assessment or viewpoints, or feelings. Fear of consequence for one’s actions or viewpoints. And of course fear of fear itself. So the many hide themselves, they keep silent and they watch. Not willing to get involved, not willing to go into any discomfort and hiding behind others who are speaking out, standing out, willing to take the heat.
I have been fighting to protect mature heritage-protected trees in our area, while some want them gone – on the pretext of fire threat, but actually for better views and because trees shed leaves. So here I’ve stood in our neighbourhood group of some 60 people – being the looney one, for many years now.
St James, like a few other Cape Town suburbs, is situated half way up a mountain. There is no road access here. Pedestrian steps join pathways which snake down, linking the mountains to the sea. Ancient trees gaze down pale blue plumbago hedges spilling over fences, shy pink lilies peek out between clumps of aloe and wild grass. It is lush overgrown terrain, home to squirrels, birds, bees, butterflies and insects. Not that long ago baboons hid in the open plot near us, which was then filled with pines, tall grass and shrub. A residential city suburb, which seems like the middle of the wilds. A one in a million location in international terms and a heritage-protected area for this reason. Sadly, it is under threat of destruction by fear-mongering neighbours, who do not believe trees or plants are conscious in any way.
“Trees exhale for us so that we can inhale them to stay alive. Can we ever forget that?
Let us love trees with every breath we take until we perish.” – Munia Khan
I will not go into the details, or cover the difference between non-invasive and invasive alien trees, or the fact that the trees were there before us (some trees are 60 years old or more), or disclose that devious means are being used here to circumvent the law. I want to focus on those who keep silent, because they don’t want to get involved. Some of them I know and others I sense. But they are all silent, for their own reasons. And they reflect the bigger problems we face in the world today, by others who also remain silent.
The silence of those not speaking out is always taken to mean that a handful of activists speak for the majority. Silence itself creates the illusion of a majority, whether a majority exists or not. Now majorities themselves are problematic. If history has taught us anything, it’s that the self-proclaimed majority may not represent the actual majority and, also, that the majority may be way off track. The existence of a majority does not automatically make that majority correct in what they believe, decide, propose or action. The recent pandemic is a case in point, not to mention world wars, segregation of various kinds and the very many genocides. All of which are going on at this very moment, while so many remain silent.
“For we are living on the cusp
Of wonders and terrors.
Weird tensions flow beneath the age
Like great subterranean rivers.
And never before has humanity,
In such full consciousness,
Drifted towards so momentous
A moment in lived, measured time.”– Ben Okri. Mental Fight
We may be a part of those many afraid to speak out or to act, but more importantly afraid to dream into this new chaos we find ourselves in. It is indeed the dawn of a new age. And yes, it is not a rehearsal. And if ever there was a time to speak, to stand up and say NO, but mostly to continue holding the space for a better future IT IS NOW!
Now, more than ever, at the actual dawn of a new age, we need to stand firm in our belief and faith: That all things are working together for good, that apparent upheaval and chaos is the preparation for wonderful things to come. We also need to oppose and resist the things that go against the grain, that are wrong and unacceptable – like the felling of mature trees for no reason, the passing of ridiculous laws, the diminishing of goodness and light, the breaking down of community and the dissolvement of hope.
We need to manifest positive outcomes like never before and resist being swept away into a negative flow. We need to swim upstream. Leap and jump into new possibilities and seeming impossibilities to create a new future and a new world.
Right now, the world needs you. You must focus your intent. Be clear on what you want and ignore, yes, ignore, the rest. Unless there is something in your close and immediate field and world that you can do, to improve for the better, you have no need or time or reason to connect with anything else going on anywhere else. Unless you have the power to create some change – then you must rise up and be heard. Speak out! Do not remain silent.
Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky.” –Kahlil Gibran
You need to gather all your attention, focus, intent, positivity, prayer and goodwill and hold it like your life depends on it, because it does. Ground the goodness. Believe it. Allow it to expand and emanate from you, for the good of all. Create your best positive outcome pictures and play them to your mind, speak them to your friends, spread them as positive rumours to the world. And speak out for that goodness. Do not remain silent.
Infect the world with your optimism. Expect wonderful things to happen! Not because you are thinking positively, as a feel-good plan, but because you are bringing these new realities into being. We, together, are bringing a new world into existence. What is the point of all these courses and healings and ascension talk and transformation you have been doing? If not to manifest the best possible outcomes for yourself and for the world. The time is now! You need to speak out!
So do not become disheartened. Do not become attached to the conspiracies and disaster theories. Let go the blame and the outrage. They themselves are a bigger trap than whatever event they are highlighting. Hold on to the soundest values of the enlightened mind, as Ben Okri says.
Do yourself a great favour and get Ben Okri’s Mental Fight book. It is a small book filled with profound wisdom and hope. A guiding light for this age, though it was written a quarter of a century ago now – to give hope for the then fears of impending doom in the year 2000. Yet it reads as if written for the apocalypse time we had some years back and also for this moment. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
“I declare this world is so beautiful that I can hardly believe it exists.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson
I talk a lot about parameters in my work. How we need parameters in order to contain. Parameters form the walls of our container and determine what we will allow inside and what we will keep outside our world, our container of self and wealth – and of life.
You cannot expect to be cheerful, hopeful or in a good enough state to manifest and create change if you surround yourself with the news, conspiracies and other negativity. In general you need to draw your parameters closer towards yourself. You need to bring them in, for the sake of mental and emotional health and sanity. Also for the sake of effective manifestation. Like the swaddling of babies keeps them feeling safe and warm.
There is too much information – and you don’t need it. You don’t need to know what’s going on everywhere, all the time. No. The internet is a huge energy field, made up of millions of subfields. Don’t enter. Apart from the EMF frazzling to your own magnetic field which we mostly seem to ignore, there is the diminishing of your resonance, goodwill, joy and hope. The dimming of your light. Dispersement of energy, creating lack of focus. When you lose focus it’s hard to manifest, when your resonance drops, it’s hard to do anything.
Now, more than ever, we need to focus our intent, our goodwill, our belief in all things good if we are to survive and thrive in the days to come. We also need to speak out. Stand for what we believe. Do not add tacit agreement to things you do not want with your silence. Stand up and be counted for the good of the whole. Shine your light into the darkness.
Jane Fonda, in her acceptance speech for the Life Achievement award at the SAG awards a few days ago spoke about empathy. She spoke of great moments of social activism and change in the past and asked the audience to consider if they would have been one of the ones to stand up and change history, as we see those from the past do, in documentaries. Then she said, ‘we are in our documentary moment, right now, it’s not a rehearsal’. She challenged people to act, to stand together in community and in their beliefs. She said that we have to be brave and protect the vulnerable.
“We must find ways to project an inspiring vision of the future.
One that is beckoning, welcoming
and, to quote the novelist Pearl Cleage,
‘On the other side of the conflagration there will still be love.
There will still be beauty. And there will be an ocean of truth for us to swim in.
LET’S MAKE IT SO!”
– Jane Fonda
It is time to drown the silence with joy, laughter, hope and light! It is time to speak out the new dawn.
