Evolution of Love 2

A SHIFT INTO SILENCE

"It happened in August 2003. The day had started like any other summer’s day. My son had gone out. I was at home alone, doing this and that. Then all of a sudden I noticed…

There was a silence in my head. Yes, silence. It was strange – where had my thoughts gone? There was a space, an interval between my thoughts that made them seem as if they were in the background. As if they no longer belonged to me, or at least no longer had any hold over me. I felt a lightness, a well-being, I felt in tune with and connected to myself like never before. Connected to something that I could not explain nor find words for: this silence… I wondered what had happened to me. And I started taking notes... It felt as if my inner mode of functioning had changed. Suddenly – like being struck by lightning – something had come upon me. I had not seen it coming and it had taken hold of me unawares. This thing that words cannot describe had taken over everything.

I just noticed that everything was different. At the time, it was the silence that struck me. But in the days that followed, I realized that I was no longer experiencing things as I had done previously. The dozens of trivialities that used to irritate me every day, a door banging, the keys that disappear just when you are ready to go out, some worry or other, all the minute details that used to constantly bother me, without my being aware that they did: none of that bothered me anymore. If I noticed the door wasn’t properly closed or the keys weren’t in my pocket, I went and closed the door, started looking for my keys – without the slightest comment, either thought or spoken. Things were what they were. My way of perceiving them, of reacting to them, had changed. I was not reacting anymore because the silence, the tranquility, had completely invaded me, and allowed me simply to see the situation the way it was. At first, I kept it to myself, watched it deep inside, wondering what on earth it could be. As I had just turned forty, I said to myself: Wow! It’s wonderful turning forty! I finally feel in tune with myself! I feel so light, so good.

~ Yolande Duran-Serrano
In 2003, and as a result of a spontaneous awakening, Yolande quits her career and her lifestyle to devote herself to the observation of the silence/presence she speaks of.