Khalil Gibran on silence

My friend Margarite posted this on her blog at a most timely time... my thoughts are flying, some amok, some not... many of them seem to be about silence and about being alone... and this piece by visionary dreamer Gibran has brought some calm to my state of confusion. The time is ripe for focus to be directed to fulfillment of personal goals and the radiation into the ether of positive waves of energy. I have seen it work in the past to a certain extent... perhaps it will again now, to a perhaps greater extent... now that it's actually needed.

Here, then, are Khalil Gibran's thoughts about silence...

"You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts; And when you can no longer dwell in the solitude of your heart you live in your lips, and sound is a diversion and a pastime. And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered. For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words many indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly. There are those among you who seek the talkative through fear of being alone. The silence of aloneness reveals to their eyes their naked selves and they would escape. And there are those who talk, and without knowledge or forethought reveal a truth which they themselves do not understand. And there are those who have the truth within them, but they tell it not in words. In the bosom of such as these the spirit dwells in rhythmic silence. When you meet your friend on the roadside or in the market place, let the spirit in you move your lips and direct your tongue. Let the voice within your voice speak to the ear of his ear; For his soul will keep the truth of your heart as the taste of the wine is remembered When the colour is forgotten and the vessel is no more."