In the Silence

I have two daughters--the older one, Kimi, and the younger one, Ida. The older girl has always been chatty and "ma-PR," as the expression goes to describe a sociable child. The baby of my small family hardly spoke as a toddler so when my father learned that she was going to sing in the Christmas chorus of her class, he was flabbergasted. He took one look at my fair, quiet child and said, "What will she sing? Silent Night?"


This incident is recollected with warmth and laughter in my heart because once again it's Sunday, my quiet day, at least for much of it.


So I'm taking a break from a week's toil and again sharing some quotations from the Facebook group MPAS (Music/Poetry/Art/Scribbles):



"True silence is the rest of the mind; it is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment." ~William Penn



"Silence is the true friend that never betrays." ~Confucius



"An inability to stay quiet is one of the most conspicuous failings of mankind." ~Walter Bagehot



"Silence is a source of great strength." ~Lao Tzu



"Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment." ~Henry David Thoreau



"Accustomed to the veneer of noise, to the shibboleths of promotion, public relations, and market research, society is suspicious of those who value silence." ~John Lahr



"The Arctic expresses the sum of all wisdom: Silence." ~Walter Bauer



"Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned his back on silence. Day after day he invents machines and devices that increase noise and distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meditation... tooting, howling, screeching, booming, crashing, whistling, grinding, and trilling bolster his ego. His anxiety subsides. His inhuman void spreads monstrously like a gray vegetation." ~Jean Arp



"I have often lamented that we cannot close our ears with as much ease as we can our eyes." ~Richard Steele



"Nowadays most men lead lives of noisy desperation." ~James Thurber



"Now all my teachers are dead except silence." ~W.S. Merwin



"The silence depressed me. It wasn't the silence of silence. It was my own silence." ~Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar



"Everybody should have his personal sounds to listen for - sounds that will make him exhilarated and alive or quite and calm.... One of the greatest sounds of them all - and to me it is a sound - is utter, complete silence." ~Andre Kostelanetz



"All noise is waste. So cultivate quietness in your speech, in your thoughts, in your emotions. Speak habitually low. Wait for attention and then you low words will be charged with dynamite." ~Elbert Hubbard


"unplug iPod/music stops abruptly/cricket song instead"~Dr SunWolf



"In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in an clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth." ~Mahatma Gandhi



"God's poet is silence! His song is unspoken,/And yet so profound, so loud, and so far,/It fills you, it thrills you with measures unbroken,/And as soft, and as fair, and as far as a star."
~Joaquin Miller



"Silence is a fence around wisdom."~German Proverb



"Silence is as deep as eternity; speech, shallow as time."~Thomas Carlyle



"You hesitate to stab me with a word, and know not - silence is the sharper sword." ~Samuel Johnson



"Silence is medication for sorrow."~Arab Proverb



"To silence another, first be silent yourself."~Latin Proverb



"Silence was never written down."~Italian Proverb



"Silence is exhilarating at first - as noise is - but there is a sweetness to silence outlasting exhilaration, akin to the sweetness of listening and the velvet of sleep."~Edward Hoagland



"Nature and silence go better together."~Astrid Alauda



"You can hear the footsteps of God when silence reigns in the mind."~Sri Sathya Sai Baba



"Not merely an absence of noise, Real Silence begins when a reasonable being withdraws from the noise in order to find peace and order in his inner sanctuary." ~Peter Minard



"Silence is a text easy to misread."~A.A. Attanasio



"Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself and know that everything in this life has a purpose."~Elisabeth Kubler-Ross



"Silence is more musical than any song."~Christina Rossetti



"Nothing is more useful than silence."~Menander of Athens



"Silence is a sounding thing, to one who listens hungrily."~Gwendolyn Bennett



"Silence is the mother of truth."~Benjamin Disraeli



"What shall I say to you? What can I say/Better than silence is?"~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow



"The deepest rivers make least din, the silent soule doth most abound in care." ~William Alexander



"Honk if you hate noise pollution."~Author unknown, as seen on a bumper sticker



"Her hearing was keener than his, and she heard silences he was unaware of."~D.M. Thomas



"We must have reasons for speech but we need none for silence."~Proverb



"All was silent as before - / All silent save the dripping rain."~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow



"There is no need to go to India or anywhere else to find peace. You will find that deep place of silence right in your room, your garden or even your bathtub." ~Elisabeth Kubler-Ross



"Silence is the secret to sanity."~Astrid Alauda



"Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute."~Josh Billings



"There are times when silence has the loudest voice." ~Leroy Brownlow



"Silences make the real conversations between friends. Not the saying but the never needing to say is what counts."~Margaret Lee Runbeck



"The best answer to anger is silence."~Author Unknown



"Let us be silent, that we may hear the whispers of the gods."~Ralph Waldo Emerson



"Silence is also speech." ~Proverb



"Words can make a deeper scar than silence can heal."~Author Unknown



"Spiteful words can hurt your feelings but silence breaks your heart."~Author Unknown



"We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature - trees, flowers, grass - grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence.... We need silence to be able to touch souls."~Mother Teresa

Photo shows "Tres Marias," a watercolor I did about a month ago. It is on exhibit at the Baguio-Mountain Provinces Museum, Gov. Pack road, Baguio City, along with the prize-winning works in the "Pine & Bamboo, Bamboo & Pine" contest and the latest watercolors of the Baguio Aquarelle Society members. Photo by LAARNI ILAGAN

Toottee and Laarni, Julia and Ana

Tuesday night my friend Toottee Chanco Pacis and I were in panic mode. While crochet trainor Teresita Coloma busied herself repairing products for selling at Sen. Pia Cayetano's Pinay in Action fun run exhibit scheduled this Saturday at the SM Mall of Asia, Toottee and I anxiously waited for freelance photographer Laarni Ilagan.

Laarni works fulltime for the Benguet Electric Cooperative (Beneco) and has been detailed outside Baguio City. She has been reliably documenting the activities of the Baguio Aquarelle Society and always says, "Any time, Ma'am Babeth, Ma'am Baboo (Mondonedo)" when we thank her for her free services.

So when the opportunity to write about the Tublay-La Trinidad women's crochet project came on that same Tuesday, Laarni was foremost on my mind. She called to say she had to do work from nine to five but would be available after five. Toottee thought of possible models for the ladies' products. "The mestizas!" she cried. She meant Julia "Laney" De Raedt and daughter Ana (Mika to us). Mother and child are part of our Greenhouse Christian Fellowship (Bible studies on Saturday evening at the Pacis greenhouse in Happy Homes, Baguio City).

The De Raedts showed up on time, but we didn't know Laarni's cell phone went dead and that she had lost her way. It was dark when she finally found the Pacis residence. She didn't have time to take deep breaths or drink a glass of water; I sort of art directed her, gave her an idea of the product shots we needed.

Nobody knows the havoc that goes on behind a pictorial. Laney and Mika had to go through Toottee's dresser for lipstick and blush. I flung open Toottee's aparador to air the Aghan throws and throw pillow cases.

Meanwhile, Oscar Pacis arrived from his Bauang, La Union, farm, and said, smilingly, on seeing all sorts of crochet products strewn in his living and dining rooms: "Am I in the right house?"

This morning, in Mandaluyong City, Toottee and I sat down for coffee to recall how the crochet project got started. No thanks to Typhoon Pepeng.

She said, "We practice transparency. This is not my one-woman show. The ladies involved run the project. They know how much is put in and how much they take home. They know the financial aspect because they do the purchasing themselves."

Toottee did a trial sales run at a Brent School Christmas bazaar. Sales were enough that she was able to give bonuses to the very active women in the project.

Not one to take credit, she said, "We have a self-sustaining project, but we will be remiss if we do not thank the original donors who started it all like Auring Bautista, her daughter Gemma, Prof. Victoria Rico Costina, Team Cafe, journalist Nonnette Bennett who has been supportive from Day One."

Toottee is studying the possibility of re-introducing other crafts like quilting in Baguio.

“What’s more,” Toottee said, “when the ladies of Benguet get their net profit, it’s
like they had invested in their own business, giving them fulfillment and adding to their self-worth.”

What wonderful things happen when women get together!

Photo by LAARNI ILAGAN