Page 44a: Practicing Silence

Wednesday, August 20, 2025 06:40PM

From Page 44-45:

“In a booklet published by the Seneca Indian Historical Society, Seneca Elder Twylah Nitsch discusses a Native American term for meditation, entering the silence. ‘Living in harmony with the peace and quietude of Nature taught the Seneca self-discipline. They moved slowly, spoke softly, and developed a natural quietude. This silence was acquired and signified perfect harmony in sirit, mind, and body. Being silent was an earned virtue and revered as an honorable trait’ (see Endnote #14 on page 353).”

Endnote #14 from page 353: “Twylah Nitsch, Entering into the Silence: The Seneca Way(Irving, N.Y.: Seneca Indian Historical Society, 1984, page 5).”

From Page 45:

“Practicing silence is not a matter of doing but of NOT-doing.”

From Page 45:

“Thinking is a physiological process that induces electrical and biochemical changes throughout the body. If we pay really close attention, we find that the process of thinking always corresponds to a subjective feeling of tension, most often centered in the face, jaw, and tongue. When we think, we are, in effect, speaking to ourselves. The metabolism speeds up. The heart beats quicker, the body breathes faster, and the mind literally races into the quickest brain-wave pattern, called beta waves.”

From Page 45:

“Achieving silence requires you to relax and slow down, to stop doing and start being.”

From Page 45:

“If there are sound in your environment, let them play upon your eardrums without wondering what they mean. Sounds cannot disturb inner silence. Be a still pond without the ripples of thought.”

From Page 45:

“The mind, like the body, needs periods of rest. Reasoning is dulled through excessive use and honed by silence.”

From Page 44-45:

“In

Inuksuit: Silent Messengers of the Arctic, researcher, photographer, and student of the Inuit, Norman Hallendy quotes Osuitok, an Elder from Baffin Island, who describes a deep state of awareness called inuinaqtukthat brings more insight than dreaming. It is related to solitude, peace , and silence and ‘is like a window through which one can see into things as never before. It’s as if you moved out of the tiny space you occupy in this world and can see the whole world and can see past its shadows” (see Endnote #16 on page 353).

Endnote #16 from page 353: “Norman Hallendy, 2000, Inuksuit: Silent Messengers of the Arctic(Toronto, Ontario: Douglas & McIntyre, pages 84-85).