At Home In The Silence

I've often noticed...over the years...how some people...when they are around other people who are not saying anything...feel
compelled to fill the air with words. It is as if the silence has unsettled them...and they are trying to calm themselves with
the uttering of words...whether they make sense or are in some way appropriate to the occasion. Of course...the silence of
others in your presence...can sometimes be used as a weapon. I remember my high school head master...doing just that...as
I appeared in his office to receive my dose of corporal punishment via the dreaded "ferula"...which was... if I remember correctly...a thin piece of flexible steel sandwiched between two thick pieces of leather. He would hear me arriving...but would keep his head down...as he scribbled on a pad...for what felt to me like the longest time...before he looked up sternly to actknowledge that I had arrived. The tenseness of the situation was added to by his punishing silence...and it was all I could do not to be triggered...as he remained quiet...into launching into a confession of a litany of real or imagined misdeeds...other than the one I was about to be physically punished for. That was probably one of the first times...when I had to discipline myself to be silent...when words were welling up in me...pressing me to vocalize them. Years after this school boy experience...it was in the company of my Native brothers and sisters of Canada...who knew how to "keep the silence" when they had nothing to say...that my education about not uttering unnecessary words because others around me were quiet...was rounded out. From that era...my education in this area of my life continued...and these days I know...that in the company of others...when there is nothing to say...if I am located at my centre...I too can be..."at home in the silence"...........Quester.