The Sound of Silence

5:30 a.m., driving to the studio to teach my early yoga birds. Dark out, save the brightness of traffic and neon storefront lights. Fine mist falling, quiet out, pretty much just the birds making noise,  blissfully unaware, singing at the top of their lungs to anyone that  cares to actually hear them. Turn the radio on and an old song is playing on NPR....The Sound of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel. The lyrics were pretty much on time then as they are now, excerpts as follows....
"Hello darkness, my old friend, I've come to talk to you again......

In the naked light I saw 10,000 people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share-
No one dared disturb the sound of silence.

Fools, you do not know, silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I may teach you, take my arms that I may reach you......

The people bowed and prayed to the neon God they made
And the sign flashed out its warning......

The words of the prophets are written in subway halls and on tenement walls...."

I don't know about you, but a vision of our current time flashed in my face. We are all so caught up, moving like drones from thing to thing praying to the almighty neon Gods, we as a society are becoming oblivious to our own humanity. People are hungry, lonely, homeless.We hear stories of freedoms taken away, cruelty, things that just don't seem right.Yet we most often just keep on going along in silent way. Do we TALK AT each other or TO each other? Do we HEAR the sound of our voices or do we really LISTEN? Do we openly SHARE our IDEAS, or stuff our DREAMS away? Are we able to break the barriers of silence? Silence comes from fear, and grows inside and with time becomes a high walled fortress. We lock ourselves away because of that fear;of being different, standing out, or what society thinks and accepts. It's safe in there, right?  Don't you dare rock the boat and step out of line! So much brilliance is squelched, and lives in silent solitude, traversing subway and tenement hall. We need to foster each other to come out of the darkness. REACH out to each other to connect and share your ideas and thoughts-you are not alone and have VALUE. TEACH your wisdom and experience-you have KNOWLEDGE. We are all ONE,  and we live in an age full of promise where we can RISE ABOVE our current condition to a higher  collective conciousness if we choose to unify our VOICE- and  rise up to break the sound of silence.