As the time for writing the newsletter neared, I listened for a topic. I trusted, as I always do, in being guided to write what readers most need to hear. 

And it seems to have worked all these years -- each month I receive a few emails from readers who say something like "Thank you for writing about this, I so needed to hear it."

So I was stunned when the guides were silent during this reflective period. 

I felt sure a message would come.

But there was nothing.

I finally realized the message is, "There is no message." 

Then I had to ask myself, "Am I alright with the silence of no reply?" Hmmmmmm. Am I?

I confess that it makes me more than a little nervous to be here writing to you about the value of the silence, of being in a place of not knowing.

I feel even more uncomfortable when all I have to share is "I don't have much to say right now." (And writing that, I assure you, is hard on the ego as well.)

Have you experienced being in the silence?

 Of not hearing answers when you ask questions?

Of being in a void where you don't know the way out?

And as I resist the discomfort of saying, "I did not hear a reply," I remember:

And with that remembrance, a shift to curiosity: What will that seed bring forth? And then, like an early spring greening, promise begins to bud, slowly replacing the frustration of the not knowing.

Now, although still in the depths of silence, I am no longer anxiously awaiting my release. Instead quiet has become a friend. I am being held lovingly, patiently, while resting safely in the velvet softness of the quiet.

Ah, now it is a place of serenity. And I smile. It is a place I know I will find myself yearning for when confusion and disorder become my teachers.

And I hear now a prayer, a blessing.

May you know silence as your ally. 

Learn what it has to teach. 

Take what it has to tell you. 

Through silence may your growth take root. 

May the quiet bring you its strength so you unfurl fearlessly, surely, into the promise of who you were meant to be.

_____________________