Silence

Dear Readers,

Each year, a friend of mine in Germany sends me a special advent calendar. This calendar offers for each day of the advent a story, a poem, or a little thoughtful note from all over the world.

I would like to translate and to share with you today's little story, titled Quarrtsiluni.

Majuaq was an old Eskimo woman. Knud Rasmussen, the research scientist, had asked her to tell him about the history of her tribe.

The old Majuaq shook her head and said:

"I have to think first, because we elders had a custom, named Quarrtsiluni."

"What is Quarrtsiluni?"

"Well, I am going to tell you. But I won't tell you any more today!"

And Majuaq began to talk with big hand gestures.

"In the old days, each fall we had great festivities to honor the soul of the whale. These festivals always had to be opened with new songs. No old songs were allowed to be sung, when men and women danced to honor these animals. And we had the custom that at the time when the men searched for the words for the new hymns all lamps had to be extinguished. It had to be dark and still in the festival house. Nothing was supposed to disturb or to distract. The men, the old and young, sat in deep silence. This silence was called Quarrtsiluni.

It meant that you wait for something to unfold. Our ancestors believed that songs were born in silence. They then grow larger in the human soul and rise up from the depth like bubbles rise up from the depth of the ocean where they seek the air to break open. This is the way the sacred hymns come into being."

I wish all of us - however busy we are during the holidays - that we can make the time to go into silence and to allow whatever wants to unfold to be born.