{"id":84,"date":"2012-12-20T09:04:00","date_gmt":"2012-12-20T09:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marysharratt.com\/main\/?p=84"},"modified":"2014-03-31T15:54:14","modified_gmt":"2014-03-31T15:54:14","slug":"silent-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marysharratt.com\/main\/silent-night\/","title":{"rendered":"Silent Night"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/marysharratt.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/advent-solstice-silence.jpg\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" height=\"295\" src=\"https:\/\/marysharratt.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/advent-solstice-silence.jpg\" width=\"400\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p>Guest post by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.livinginseason.com\/\">Waverly Fitzgerald<\/a><\/p>\n<p><i>Silence is the strength of our interior life.<\/i><br \/><span style=\"white-space: pre;\"> <\/span>Thomas Merton<br \/><span style=\"white-space: pre;\"> <\/span><br \/>When I first read that the feast day of Diva Angerona, the Roman goddess of silence, was celebrated on the winter solstice, I decided to spend the daylight hours of the solstice in silence, a custom I have maintained for many years. It requires a bit of advance preparation (warning my friends and family of my intentions, going shopping for any necessities ahead of time) but it has been well worth it. I love the way the silence changes everything. I become more aware of both the endless chatter that goes on in my mind and my inner voice. When I emerge from my day of silence, I feel like I&#8217;m emerging from a deep pool.<\/p>\n<p>This week, at the darkest time of the year, look for opportunities to bring silence into your life. Go for a solitary walk, perhaps on the Day of the Winter Solstice. Turn off the other voices that normally fill your space: give up listening to the news, reading on the bus, or tuning in to NPR. Set aside an evening when you will be alone in your home, with no TV on, with no phone, with no book to read. What thoughts and experiences will you gather in silence?<\/p>\n<p>Waverly Fitzgerald writes about seasonal time and holidays at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.livinginseason.com\/\">Living in Season<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Guest post by Waverly Fitzgerald Silence is the strength of our interior life. Thomas Merton When I first read that the feast day of Diva Angerona, the Roman goddess of silence, was celebrated on the winter solstice, I decided to spend the daylight hours of the solstice in silence, a custom I have maintained for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marysharratt.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marysharratt.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marysharratt.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marysharratt.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marysharratt.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marysharratt.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marysharratt.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marysharratt.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marysharratt.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marysharratt.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}