We live in a culture preoccupied with making our voices heard. At the same time, thanks to technology, we have become acclimatized to a discordant chorus of voices constantly vying for our attention. We pass each other on walks or bike rides with earbuds firmly in place, listening to our favorite podcast or music, but, what of silence? In an increasingly cacophonous world, perhaps the one voice we are least likely to recognize is that which we most need to hear; the hushed wisdom of a creative silence that holds secrets waiting for us to discover.

 

A Connection Between Silence and the Transcendent

There are times when pain and grief usher us into the desert of silence and there are times, when, like the mystics of old, we travel there of our own accord, summoned by a wordless longing from the depths. Centuries ago, an ancient psalmist, penned: "I have stilled and quieted my soul." Jung wrote of a similar discipline of solitude that he seemed to find increasingly necessary as he moved into later life. The 12th century mystic and abbess, Hildegard of Bingen wrote: "It is not far from the shores of silence to the boundaries of speech. The path is not long, but the way is deep." The ancient mystics and sages understood that the soul seems to require seasons of silence in order to access the deep places of transformative growth.

 

A Hidden Archetypal Reality of the Prophetic Feminine

There is a great chasm between being silenced and choosing to be silent.

Historically humanity has been divided between those who hold the authority to silence and those who have no choice but to be silenced. Yet there is an archetypal reality in sacred stories of the divine consistently choosing the silenced half of humanity to move consciousness forward. Scripture illuminates an archetypal reality of a silent wisdom that reveals itself in moments of darkest despair as well as in times of unspeakable awe and wonder. In these stories, we discover that this is almost always a feminine embodied silent knowing that is connected to the transcendent and is prophetic in nature. This stands in stark relief to the historically transmogrified curiosity of women we so often hear about in patriarchally packaged religions. In many of these stories, angels appear and ask questions that are profoundly significant to the process of transformative growth.

 

A Community Gathering on Winter Solstice

As we approach the Winter Solstice, I invite you to join me in this four week journey, where we will explore these stories and the wisdom that waits in the silent places. In this series, you will receive three 45 minute recorded webinar presentations; each exploring a different archetypal season of silence. You can engage with these at your own pace, when it's convenient for you. Each recorded presentation will look at sacred stories, poetry, myth and some of Jung's writing in the Red Book to discover:

 

·The wisdom found in the silence of grief

·The wisdom found in the silence of awe and wonder

·The wisdom found in the silence of the desert places

 

Each session will include creative prompts that you can use for your own process of journaling or creative engagement. The fourth and final session will be a live gathering on Tuesday, December 21st, via Zoom, where you will have a chance to participate in a sharing of the themes and wisdom that evolved as a result of your engagement with this material.

 

This series is rooted in my degree in Biblical studies, my experiences as a woman on the pastoral staff of an inner-city mega-church, my graduate studies exploring the feminine within Jungian psychology and over a decade of work as founder and director of Seeing Red, exploring the archetypal roots of internalized oppression and violence against women. I invite you to join me as I explore sacred stories through a lens that may offer you a new understanding of the archetypal feminine and her connection with transformative growth for women and men.

 

Participants will be encouraged to do what Pulitzer Prize winning poet, Anne Sexton advised: "Put your ear down close to your soul and listen hard." I hope you will join me in this journey exploring the wisdom that waits in the silent places.