The Evening Star

Every spiritual practice in the world is related in some way with the practice of maintaining silence and meditative state of consciousness. The purpose of silence is a directed stillness, which receives rather than acts. There is richness in the standing still, the non-acting. It is not outer reality that silence reveals, but our own innerness. Entering into silence is like stepping into cool clear water. The dust and debris are quietly washed away and we are purified of our triviality. Then magically and quietly a spontaneous creative process can surface.

Turner (1830) in his painting The Evening Star magically captures these transitional moments in nature, the evening star first appears in daylight and is soon supplanted by the stronger light of the moon. It’s as if he has painted silence itself. Silence is a paradox, intensely ‘there’ and with equal intensity, ‘not there’. The passivity of silence is hard to explain, as in one respect it is intensely active. We hold ourselves in a condition of surrender. We choose not to initiate. Yet from this passivity arises creativity. The mysterious liberation from all worldly demands to enter into inner awareness of a deeper kind is exemplified in Turner’s scene, both alive and moving.