Loomio

Sharing Silence

AR Alex Rodriguez Public Seen by 5

Inspired by the first piece of our "money and care" gathering today, I have an observation and and offering that I hope can consolidate itself into a proposal with your feedback.

On our call today, I felt a really strong sense of resonance and connection in the shared space of holding quiet with you. I've noticed this starting to arise in my Buddhist sangha, too--there's this really powerful sense of spaciousness that pervades our zoom gatherings that I've really come to love and trust.

I have the beginnings of a first idea that I'll share below as the first comment in this thread.

AR

Alex Rodriguez Thu 10 Dec 2020 4:10PM

I would really love to intentionally continue to hold some of that space for ourselves with some sort of regular rhythm in addition to our occasional calls. What came to mind was to see if we could coordinate, for starters, a 15-minute check-in on the discord congregation that involved 5 minutes of quietly sharing space together followed by a quick "how are you doing today" round and then some shared way of exiting the space. I'm happy to hold this space for us to start and would also welcome others to try things in the framework if you are interested.

Would it be possible to coordinate our schedules to do this once per week?

JF

Josh Fairhead Fri 11 Dec 2020 4:50PM

Silence is golden. I feel an ease in the space for these reasons as well; there's actually space!

I generally like your proposal but I'm not sure how it will play out. I think it would be easier for me to agree to if it were time bounded as an experiment first. I would be more inclined to get involved in iterative cycles with breaks between

AR

Alex Rodriguez Fri 11 Dec 2020 5:37PM

that makes sense! would weekly for a month make sense as a first try?

JF

Josh Fairhead Fri 11 Dec 2020 5:47PM

Maybe monthly for four months?

AR

Alex Rodriguez Fri 11 Dec 2020 6:45PM

I'll see if @Toni Blanco or @Ronen Hirsch would like to chime in with suggestions and if not, I will make this into a proposal next week

RH

Ronen Hirsch Sat 12 Dec 2020 11:37AM

thank you @Alex Rodriguez for presenting this.

Context

Some of my written words may come across as critical so I want to preempt my response by:

  1. Sharing in the appreciation for silence.

  2. Gratitude for your valuing it and bringing it into this conversation.

  3. Offering unconditional support for whatever experiment you have in my mind (and also acknowledging that until I experience something I can't really relate to it).

  4. Embracing your proposal and yes-and-ing it by "raising the stakes" see below).

Personal Reservations

  • Currently a weekly engagement feels too much for me.

  • The bi-weekly rhythm of cycle 1 felt sufficiently saturating for me.

  • I prefer to not start anything new in the coming weeks and to hold off until we are settled into 2021.

Meta-Reservations

There is something about my experience of our shared silence that places it in the "something you glimpse from the corner of your eye" category of experiences. And my experience is that when I try to look directly at something which you glimpse from the corner of your eye ... the thing which you are trying to look at becomes elusive and tends to disappear.

I feel hesitant and doubtful about trying to make explicit our implicit experience of silence. Silence is different when it is between sounds ... and the quality of the silence is informed by the sounds that surround it. I think that the quality you are pointing to is of a silence that happens within our conversations. I think that taking the silence out of that context will likely feel ... disappointing.

I believe that silence (as a meditative quality) is something we stumble upon (as if it finds us!) when the conditions are right. I think it is less likely to come about when you try to make it explicitly. My reasoning is that IF that is the case, and we want to experiment more of it, the focus should be on the conditions that are conducive for an emergence of silence!

With that in mind heart I'd like to offer a question to hold as a reflection and a concrete proposal.

Question: Remote Silence

How can the experience of synchronous-silence be evoked in a remote setting ... when we are apart in space and time but together in context?

For example: when replying on Loomio to a substantial thread, spend a few explicit minutes in implicit silence between reading and writing. When doing so, try to reconnect with the experience of shared synchronous-silence and allow it to inform you in the present. Maybe, before responding, re-read what you are responding to after the silence and see if you read it differently because of the silence?

Proposal: Breath

I would like "see your silence and raise you a breath" :)

There have been numerous times during our shared journey, including during the last call when Toni spoke about his personal health and well-being that I've wanted to bring this up ... but I always felt a reservation to do so ... that there wasn't space. Now I feel invited to finally speak this out.

For context I would ask you to spend a few minutes reading these brief pages about:

  1. Breath in a group context: http://breathorg.iamronen.com/

  2. Breath in a personal context: http://ibreathe.iamronen.com/

A rough proposal outline would be:

  1. Gathering once a month for a breathing lesson and practice (silence implicitly built-in!). This can be a shorter standalone gathering (20-30 minutes) or an opening to a longer/wider gathering.

  2. Leaving the monthly gathering with a specifically formulated personalized practice which (initially) requires ~5-10 minutes a day.

  3. Practicing individually daily (aspiring to).

  4. Discussing during the next-breath-gathering-lesson (during which the practice is deepened and evolved) how our personal breaths have evolved and how this informs our collective well-being.

Breathing practices can be an embodied experience and practice of unfolding (how the breath changes through practice). I am curious how having such a practice as a shared experience and vocabulary can inform our crew.

... that was me keeping it brief (arghh!) ... happy to say more based on your reception and responses :)

TB

Toni Blanco Sat 12 Dec 2020 9:56PM

Thank you very much for your offerings. After Christmas I will be able to allocate more time in our inquiry, so I am actually open to both of your offers. I know that this is not the same as the initial offer, but @Alex Rodriguez and I could commit for a weekly 10-15 minutes (open to other to join if feel to, i.e. @Josh Fairhead once a month). @Ronen Hirsch offer comes timely because as I told you I want/need to take care of myself and breathing is like... the foundational practice of self-care.