Show Notes
Charna Cassell: [00:00:00] Hi there. This is Charna Cassell and the topic of today's episode is silence. Of course I recorded the introduction for this episode, and when we played it back, it was completely silent, which I thought was perfect. Having recorded a hundred episodes in this. Being the first time that that ever happened.
That was very interesting. But it was also synchronistic because, , I got the opportunity to apply the different things that I learned from this book and the practices that it invited me into. I had the opportunity to apply it, , on a recent trip I took after recording the episode.
to pet whales, to interact with them up close and personal. And , while it was a mind blowing experience, I also had the experience of being on a bus for eight hours with. People whose voices were abrasive [00:01:00] and dissonant with my own values. So I was getting to experience a lot of environmental noise and the internal noise that got evoked inside me in response to some of the things that were being talked about.
So it gave me the opportunity to not only find silence inside of external noise. And go inward, but also have a lot of, uh, you know, boundaries. While on the trip I chose to sit by myself, I chose to take as much time away from the voices as I possibly could. And, uh, so this felt, it just felt very relevant given what's happening in the world right now and in particular in the United States.
You might be brushing up against a lot of different communities, whether it's, , political, cultural, , inside your own family or at work where you don't feel aligned with the noise. And so this book is a beautiful invitation to, , cope [00:02:00] in a different way. So, years ago I had the experience of being really sick and I lived in Berkeley among all these college students and there was constant construction happening.
So for four years there was jackhammering on all sides of me. There were buildings being built and I was dealing with sLeighp deprivation. And a teacher of mine said to me. This is an opportunity for you to find internal peace and get quiet inside, even in the face of all that external jackhammering and noise.
And so in a very human way. I, while I did try to keep meditating and do, and finding that silence, I also wanted to escape it. So I went to Hawaii to go on a little writing retreat, and I found a cabin in the middle of nowhere. It was supposed to be the farthest away from all the retreat center activities.
Wouldn't, you know it, there was a cabin being fixed and there was jackhammering happening upon my arrival, and the [00:03:00] people that staffed it were in disbelief because it was not the kind of thing that they expected to be happening. It shouldn't have been happening, but it was in direct service to me, so I chose after.
Doing this interview and thinking so much about silence and noise to take on these different people on my trip, to use them as teachers and, , while I could have devolved into frustration and, , rage. I had those moments as well. I also really felt grateful for this book. So with that, I would like to introduce. Justin Talbot, Zorn and Leigh Marz, the authors of Golden: The Power of Silence In a World of Noise. Justin Talbot. Zorn has served as both a policymaker and a meditation teacher in the US Congress, a Harvard and Oxford trained specialist in the [00:04:00] economics and psychology of wellbeing.
Justin has written for the Washington Post, the Atlantic, Harvard Business Review, foreign Policy, and other publications. Leigh Marz is a collaboration consultant and leadership coach for major universities, corporations, and federal agencies, as well as a longtime student of pioneering researchers and practitioners.
Of the ritualized use of psychedelic medicines in the West. Their book has been translated into 15 different languages, which tells you how necessary and useful this book is. At this time, I highly recommend you not only listen to this whole episode, but that you read their book.
Welcome, Justin and Leigh. [00:05:00]
So happy to have you here. I loved your book.
Leigh Marz: It's
Justin Zorn: a joy to be here.
Charna Cassell: To give our listeners some context, how has the relationship to noise and silence evolved for you since writing Golden, The Power of Silence in a World of Noise?
Leigh Marz: Wow, that's great. I'll start us off. , Just from the very beginnings, the idea of, of writing and exploring silence, , was captivating to both of us. I think [00:06:00] one of the things that surprised us is how much that would entail also thinking and talking about noise. So it became a deep exploration, not just of silence.
As we'd hope, but also deeply of noise and then stepping out, you know, it is definitely feeling different today in this current time when we're talking about it feels a lot like when we went to write the book in 2017. We were feeling a bit. of feelings of despondency and all this, you know, point counterpoint argument and we got the feeling that the answers lied somewhere in between the noise and the empty space and it feels, you know, we've had that feeling throughout the writing of this book and then we had some time where maybe it felt a little quieter overall and now it just feels like we're right back in the fray so it it just keeps moving and changing and I'm grateful for some of the, um, Um, tools that we [00:07:00] discovered, uncovered, and ways, things we learned about ourselves in silence to help us navigate this time.
Charna Cassell: Mm.
Leigh Marz: Yeah.
Justin Zorn: Well put.
Leigh Marz: Mm.
Charna Cassell: Given, given that, so one of the things I've been thinking a lot about is propaganda as noise, and we're in the United States for our overseas listeners. And, and so for people, one of the things that's really beautiful in your book is, is, is talking about how noise can, function in a variety of ways.
And so for one person, I may hear a chainsaw as noise or I may hear drumming as noise, but the person who's creating the art behind those forms of noise may be in the zone. So they may be, they may be accessing a space of silence and deep peace for themselves in that process. , but how can someone decipher between noise?
That is [00:08:00] harmful for them or causing, uh, dysregulation in their system and, , noise that's productive or, or useful.
Justin Zorn: Yeah. That's such an important question, you know, and you know, one level we think of silence as this absence of noise, you know, it's this, it's a space where no one's making claims on your consciousness where no one's interfering with your clear perception.
for your intention. So it's easy to think of noise just as decibel levels. As you, as you put it, noise is really that which is interfering with what we truly, really want. And you know, as you mentioned, propaganda, and you know, the propaganda often is what someone else wants, is noise with an agenda, something with an intention of taking us away from our intention what matters in our lives, what makes for a good life, what is reflective of our clear perception and intention.
So it's a work for [00:09:00] each one of us to identify what's the noise of our life and what's the clarity, you know, which we describe as, as silence. Silence almost as a kind of metaphor for living with clear intention and perception. So it's a work for each one of us to discern.
Charna Cassell: I love that. Were, were you going to add something Leigh?
Leigh Marz: One thing I'd say is, but what, that question is, it was the big question for us. And so one of the things we did is break out noise to describe an auditory type of noise that comes, you know, we can measure in decibels and could usually comes at us through the ears, but even can impact our bodies and nervous systems.
And then we looked at informational noise. So we want to distinguish these types of noises that's flooding in the information, flooding in through all of our systems. Our senses and grabbing bits, , we've talked about bits of, um, attention. So this, you know, millions of bits of information that our attentional networks are sifting through.
And so that type of [00:10:00] noise, and then to think also about the noise inside of our minds are, you know, chatter, um, rumination, uh, worry, distress. And so if we can kind of zoom in and get a little bit more discerning about. The types of noise that are around us and, and then look at the signals that they are really, are they having an impact in my, am I finding that flow state calm like the chainsaw Carver you're referring to, you know, am I finding that chainsaw calm, my breath full and deep is my focus, you know, there, or is it actually agitating to the whole system?
And then, of course, another question you're pointing to is like, well, what's the relationship with others in that like, you know, you know, if I'm the, if I'm, you know, I've married a chainsaw carver. Now, how are we going to work that out? And so we do want to look at our relationships. As well, because, you know, most of this noise and silence is happening in relationships.
So whether that's home environments or workplaces or a society at large, we [00:11:00] want to be thinking about our impact, you know, our impact. Yeah.
Charna Cassell: Oh my God. So good. And, uh, you know, what you're, what you're speaking to in terms of when I think of informational noise, thinking about the news, thinking about social media, even thinking about, uh, You know, someone who might be living in a culture or a family that has dissonant values, and that's like come information coming from the outside, and then how that can create the internal noise, which is like the collective fear penetrating in and then creating and dysregulating, and especially if there's a history of trauma, how that then, , can plunge people back into their history.
Leigh Marz: Absolutely.
Charna Cassell: Yeah,
Justin Zorn: I think it's, it's really a question of values, whether we see more information as the answer, the answer to solve problems, the answer for our healing. [00:12:00] If only we get a little bit more information about what we should do. You know, continue scrolling till we get that one little gem that's going to solve everything for us.
You know, we say in the book that Eric Schmidt, when he was the CEO of Google, you know, made this estimate that every two days we create as much information as we did from the dawn of civilization up until 2003. And you can imagine this is a logarithmic curve. I mean, this is exponential growth of information.
That was 2010. It's, it's almost. It's incomprehensible how much information we're creating. And the assumption is often, you know, if we get more information, we'll be able to solve that problem, whether it's a global ecological problem or an interpersonal problem or a personal healing question. So Our, our main proposition in writing this book was really the idea that maybe more and more mental stuff is not necessarily the answer.[00:13:00]
Maybe the answer comes in tuning in. To the silence itself so that we can adapt to be able to be more sensitive and more discerning to the signals to discern the noise from the sea.
Charna Cassell: Absolutely that I was thinking about you guys in this book. I had a birthday. I called it a rebirth day party, , addressing kind of wanting to, , Address trauma, birth trauma, life trauma that had occurred and rewrite those stories.
And so I, I had a little ceremony and I was in prayer and I was releasing things to the fire. And I was, um, and I was encircled by these, these people that love me. And I was thinking about the silence, the space between the moments where I'd make the prayer. I'd speak it out loud and I'd release something.
And I was feeling. The beautiful connection, you know, between all of us and [00:14:00] also feeling like I wasn't making, I wasn't just making these prayers for myself. I was, these were collective prayers that I was wishing for each of the people in the circle. And I was, and your, I feel like your book speaks to this so well.
It's like the connection that happens in the silence.
Leigh Marz: Absolutely. We love to say that silence is magnified when it's shared. And that magnification and expansion of the prayer that you're putting into the fire and how, you know, we're, we're, we're changed after those experiences. We're forever changed. I felt that, too.
I feel that hearing about it secondhand, it's a beautiful, a beautiful thing. So how can we build our capacity for that? Because we, we've gotten so far away from silence, thinking more about silence. It's awkward if we're in community instead of, transformational you
know?
Charna Cassell: Well, and, and inside that, the notion of awkwardness, silence is awkward.
We even say, like, [00:15:00] awkward silence, right? There's a fear of what's going to arise sometimes for people, right, or what will be seen. And also, I think, you know, you speak to this in the book about, for some people, silence is scary. And I think that's absolutely true for some people, some trauma survivors, where silence, there can be a bracing inside of silence.
Right? Like silence can be peaceful for some, but for others, there's, there's the fear of what's yet to come, right? The storm, like their anticipation.
Leigh Marz: Absolutely. For a lot of people, I think it mimics the household holds they grew up in, what that kind of silence, that threatening type of silence meant. And it really isn't.
Is not from a informed place that we think of silence is just good, you know, jumping to that conclusion, silence is good and it should be easy for all Jarvis, of course, was one of our, you know, one of our dear [00:16:00] friends and interviewees Jarvis J Masters was one of the people to really teach us about actually the space between silence or the environment.
Thank you. Uh, there's a certain type of noise that where the silence right up against that kind of noise is actually the kind of silence he wants a total. There's a silence in San Quentin on death row that is just bad news. That kind of silence that is not, you know, and it took years and years and years of Buddhist practice for him to become more comfortable to ease into the silence of meditation.
You know, so we, we definitely learned a lot about that from him.
Charna Cassell: Can you speak, uh, either one of you speak a little more to that? Because I think there's the assumption it's like silence, stillness, meditation, that there's a link and there's, they're actually quite, they can be quite different. And I know also for me with having, uh, a trauma history.
It took a while to feel safe enough to be in the [00:17:00] stillness and in the silence of meditation. So they were all linked for me, but that's not the case for everybody.
Justin Zorn: We really wanted to write this book as a kind of non meditators guide to getting beyond the noise, you know? And, you know, to what you're speaking of.
I mean, we've had 40 years, almost 50 years of mindfulness. Somewhat mainstream, you know, at least having some presence in the culture. You know, and yet in spite of that. the world is more distracted than ever. So what we really wanted to do was find ways for people to get beyond questions like, am I doing it right when it comes to meditation?
Because, you know, as you're speaking about trauma, as you're speaking about each one of us having our own set of experiences and our own conditioning, each one of us in our own way, can find what this clear perception and intention feels like. Each one of us in our own way knows what this state of pristine awareness [00:18:00] feels like.
It's not necessarily something that we need to be defined by a book or by a teacher or by, you know, anyone other than ourselves. It's a state that is inherent to being human, and each one of us can, can tune into. So, you know, we wanted to write this book as a way to, Honor the teachings about mindfulness that are out there, very good teachings and very good guides who are out there in terms of how to meditate.
But to, to, you know, work to liberate people from a kind of one size fits all approach to this question of how we navigate. All those destabilizing winds of modern mental hyperstimulation, you know, so we just, you know, we say in the opening, the opening of the book is a kind of meditation, , you know, where we explore what does it mean to just notice noise, tune into silence.
Charna Cassell: Thank you. I love that.
Leigh Marz: Yeah. Justin and I are both [00:19:00] lapsed meditators as well. We'd had, uh, and gained a lot of appreciation for those practices, but we're no longer finding ourselves using those practices to find quiet. And even Jarvis is a, you know, great meditator. He loved to talk to us about the, his flow states in writing and, um, working out in his cell and different other ways that he found.
silence. So, um, we, we need multiple myriad, many ways in and those ways might change over lifetime, you know, over your lifetime. And for me, for example, physically sitting meditation was just no longer viable. It just doesn't work for my body if I'm really listening to my body. So moving meditation, um, is where I look.
Yeah. So I just think it's, you know, just to open that up and create a little more space where we live in Santa Fe and in Berkeley. Um, sort of the, you meditate, of course, is the assumption. Well, we were [00:20:00] feeling a little like, Oh no, we don't meditate, but we do really care about silence. And you know, what are the ways to do that?
Charna Cassell: But the, what you point to, which is so important is that the, so we, we know it as the zone or the flow state or even meditation, we go into an alpha brainwave. State. And so there's the sense of calm that comes over the body. And my first access point was writing, , and then dance. And I know that, you know, you do both.
So I have clients who can't meditate like that. Be that. First of all, the internal noise of I'm doing it wrong. get so loud, right? There's that reactivity internally and fear of doing it wrong, , so they just have a total aversion to it, right? I have a meditative light machine that I'll use with some clients that helps induce that because it's like a neurofeedback machine, but I love that this notion, because it's just right in line with what you're speaking about, of, , there's not one way, not a [00:21:00] one size fits all.
That immediately, um, I'm filled with trust when someone doesn't have a one size fits all approach to something, you know, , because we, we are so individual. One of the, I was listening to another interview that you guys, that you did, and, and Justin, you were talking about, contraction. In consciousness and contraction is a term.
It's interesting because I, as a somatic therapist, it's something I've thought about for the last 20 years and it's not always used. And so I love that you talked about this because the notion it's like that it really speaks to the mind body connection of contraction, contracted thoughts, contraction, the body.
And I was wondering if you could talk more about that.
Justin Zorn: Yeah, for sure. This is something that really came to us from the neuroscientist Judson Brewer in an exploration of, you know, what is silence in the mind? Because, you know, if you, if you study the [00:22:00] mind, you know, study the neuroscience, a human being who's in total silence, a state of absolute no thought, no auditory noise whatsoever, is dead.
You know, in, in a human life, there's going to be thought, there's going to be somatic experience, there's going to be, there's going to be sensory experience, and that's okay. You know, if we can encounter silence in this, buzzing, moving world that we're living in. So Judson Brewer, this MD PhD neuroscientist who's done a lot of work studying the brains of experienced meditators, said that one way to think about it is, you know, when we're in this state of pristine awareness, in this state of pure intention and perception, there's a feeling of expansion.
in the mind and body. And when we feel that state of distraction, of the noise that's pulling us away from our [00:23:00] pristine attention, there's an experience of contraction.
So
it's, it's very subjective, but, you know, it's a kind of, it's a way of, it's a way of understanding how to navigate the noise of the world, noticing how it's reflecting, how it's reflected in our body and mind.
Leigh Marz: That was such a big moment. And when we realized that was actually a lifetime practice right there to notice noise, to notice all those contractions you were talking about and to tune into silence and to feel for those places of expansion. And I mean, it's kept us busy ever since.
Charna Cassell: Well, and it's important that, and I'm curious, it also points to the topic of embodiment, right?
It's like you can't really study these subjects without also talking about embodiment, because you're, you're talking about using the body as a reference point for like, how do you, how do you know what puts you into that space of, of ease and silence?
Justin Zorn: [00:24:00] Totally. Yeah. You know, I was thinking back when you were talking about how.
Silence is often scary, or silence is awkward or, you know, uncomfortable, and then the body is a reference point.
I was thinking
of this University of Virginia study that was done several years back, where a social scientist told participants that they had a choice to either sit in this room alone, Or they could push a button that would administer a really painful electric shock.
And initially they were told this, this painful, this shock would be so painful that many of the participants said they would actually pay money to avoid this shock. But then after about 15 minutes, 67 percent of the men and 25 percent of the women actually chose to shock themselves with the painful shock rather than sit in silence.
That's how
uncomfortable silence was.
Charna Cassell: God, well, that makes me think of COVID and I'm so curious. Like, the [00:25:00] period of, cause I, I, you started this book. I mean, this book, did it come out before COVID? I'm trying to remember now.
Leigh Marz: Yeah, it came out in 2022. And really we, um, the. We got the contract to start writing at the beginning of 2020.
So COVID and, um, and our writing of this book coincided completely. And we, you know, it created an almost an enforced writing retreat for us in some place, although a challenging one, considering our, now our school houses were inside of our house and our offices were inside of our house and things like that, you know, but it, it was, uh, an amazing companion to this.
Charna Cassell: But it's, but what's interesting about that is that you're suddenly confronted with a whole other level of noise that you're having to navigate. And then I'm, you know, what, why I thought of COVID was just the amount of discomfort that people felt with reduced noise and more [00:26:00] isolation. I mean, some people are dealing with more noise because they have children and some people are like, no social contact.
What do I, you know.
Leigh Marz: Right. And then natural world is actually going hooray. We can hear each other. We can, you know, hear each other in the oceans. The whales are experiencing and the bird song is people are saying, are the birds louder now in COVID? It's like, no, we're just a little quieter. We're able to hear them.
So our relationship to your point, our relationship to noise got, you know, jiggered and in an interesting way where people did seem more aware of noise changing, whether it got louder or quieter than they had before when we were just kind of carrying on.
Charna Cassell: one of the things I observed as a trauma therapist is there were built in boundaries because of COVID and that once those were removed, people had to be more discerning for themselves.
[00:27:00] Yeah. Um, because inside that's more silence. People's stuff came up inside the collective fear. People's trauma came up. And then also like with those restrictions with their families, it seemed like suddenly people realized how much they liked Stronger boundaries or, or had trouble articulating those boundaries on their own.
And so it's, yeah, it just, it brings up a lot of interesting stuff around, uh, internal noise and also more, perhaps more clarity, as you were saying, if silence is defined as clarity and, and, and an internal listening.
Justin Zorn: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, I'm thinking about like the mental states of those. You know, young people who wanted to press that shock button instead of just sitting in silence.
I mean, COVID could be a metaphor for that. We were forced to just sit in [00:28:00] silence for a short time, you know, before our lives got consumed with Zoom calls. But you know, I think that is really a window into the mental and somatic states, into the emotional states in which we're living. And silence can be this kind of clarifying tool.
Force, when you take away the distraction, we're able to look into that resting state, you know, what is our, what is our baseline in terms of the levels of, in terms of the levels of trauma and agitation that we're dealing with. So I think this is really getting back to the, the, the intuition, the hunch that led me and I to work on this book, um, you know, that led me to be thinking about how do we hit reset as a society?
You know, how do we get to a place where we can, we can really dig a little bit deeper and see what's going on, what's behind some of the polarization and acrimony and, and that poll, you know, uses the word propaganda, this [00:29:00] kind of desire to force our views and opinions on others and the desire to control and so much of what's happening now, you know, what's underneath and to figure out what's underneath, you know, we need to, we need to tune into the silence.
And there's no one way to do that, you know, people can do that through finding their flow states, people can find it through meditation, people find it through, you know, psychedelic practices, people find it in all different ways.
Charna Cassell: And you have a, , a number of ways that you offer in the book. And are there particular ones that, , that you discovered to be particularly useful for you?
And in the writing of this book and after,
Leigh Marz: yeah,
absolutely. I mean, one of the things I alluded to was, um, I think previously, and for any movers out there, I hope that this validates, uh, that for them previously, I put my love of dance sort of in this other category. And it wasn't until we were writing this book that I realized how much.
Internal quiet, [00:30:00] I actually received, and in community, in the midst of a loud dance studio with music thumping and, you know, doing these choreographies, there's just a certain amount of attentional focus needed, and there is no more room up here, in my mind, to be ruminating about whatever comes next. As soon as I think about something, in fact, You know, I, I lose my place or I lose my stuff, which is a problem because I'm teaching the class.
So, so it, it became really clear to me that, saying my primary route to silence was actually, , through dance. So. With those less likely or lesser known flow states, movement states, or other things that people might find, chainsaw carving, , to really lift that up and honor that it's, it's not just exercise.
It's not just fun. It is those things that it's really, uh, your doorway through to silence and a reset for that, for your whole, for, in my case, my whole body, and as well as just like practices, I'd learned that Justin [00:31:00] really loved, you know, just going out into nature to just walk out just even for, you know, You know, a minute or two between calls.
And I love to watch bees pollinate, you know, pollinating and bumbling around in the flowers and stuff. And that meditation, just to really take, just to honor that and what it does in terms of clearing away the noise between, you know, all these meetings and in a full day and full life. Yeah. What about you, Justin?
Justin Zorn: Yeah, that's a beautiful way to put it, I think in writing this book, we really just tried to first simplify,
figure
out like, how do we really come in contact with the silence we're talking about without a bunch of ideas from neuroscientists and, you know, and, and scholars of tantric auditory meditation philosophies and, and just get to the essence.
Charna Cassell: Yeah.
Justin Zorn: How to just get to the essence. You know, one thing that really [00:32:00] captured our attention and our imagination was this idea of nada yoga,
the,
the meditation on sound and how to, how to tune into silence in an active way. And one thing we learned in studying the, the medical and scientific research was that in some studies, the act of listening to nothing in some mammals actually regenerated neurons in the brain more than other forms of meditation.
So actively listening to nothing in particular is one of the big takeaways for me in terms of practice.
Charna Cassell: That's so beautiful. I mean, here's the thing that's so interesting. It's like you can know a truth for yourself and have experienced it viscerally. And then, you know, it takes 10 years for science or 20 years for science to catch up and to validate it.
I actually loved all the scientific studies. You know that just I really enjoyed reading about all [00:33:00] that. But one of the things I wrote this down Max Picard, , and I might not get the exact quote, but the concept is silence is the only phenomenon today that is useless because it cannot be exploited. And it makes things whole again.
And silence is wholly uselessness. I almost I feel emotional.
Justin Zorn: You know, we really, I'm glad you mentioned that, that, you know, I actually encountered that quote reading this, this book of this, this really mysterious guy, mystical guy, writing just after World War II, Max Picard. I encountered this book when we were in the, the NICU, the newborn intensive care unit, when our twins were born, right around when we were writing the book.
And they were thankfully healthy, but we had to be there for a while. They were born early. , I was just. totally enraptured with this book by Max Picard where we found that quote and you know it's such a It's such a spiritual quote, and it is also such a political and economic insight. [00:34:00] Into, you know, how we appraise value
as a
society, because just like we measure GDP by the industrial stuff we're creating, you know, the, when we, when we, you know, log a forest and cut down the tree that counts as value for GDP, but if we save it intact, it doesn't, you know, because we're not turning that into usefulness in terms of what could be sold at Home Depot, um, you know, we're not counting the value of pristine nature.
You know, it was really through some kinds of meditations on that idea you just said about this holy useless, holy uselessness, that, you know, we came to realize that, that this pristine state of attention and awareness, this space of silence, isn't something that we value as a society, you know, doesn't count as a good for GDP.
It doesn't really count as productive on our resume, it's not something that we count as, as a life well lived [00:35:00] according to the dominant indicators of our society. So, one of our real purposes in writing this book was to, to reappraise, you know, what is, You know, what is really useful, you know, what is really, you know, maybe we need a little bit more of this holy uselessness.
Charna Cassell: It's yeah, I got from that, like that silence is anti capitalist, radical and healing. Like that was totally the gist of it.
Leigh Marz: Yeah, we have swung in that direction with the direction where it's like our attention unless it's cut up like those that forest that Justin was describing
that,
you know, that's, that's the only value is if our attention is somehow captured by some and brought into the capitalist society.
So yeah, we, we, I love that you pulled that particular, , quote out of all of them and brings chills, , to, to think about that. So yeah, we're really in search of that holy [00:36:00] uselessness these days. We want more of that.
Charna Cassell: One of the things that also. What really strikes me is the, the creativity, generativity, and connection that happens in silence.
And that these are all things that, , are, are really essential and important signs of healing from trauma, right? Like the, your ability to think creatively, imagine, be generative, a lot of that gets interrupted. through trauma. And so when there's more of that, and also being able to be in silence, right?
So like when you have more of that capacity, you know that you're on a healing path.
Leigh Marz: Oh, that's beautiful.
Charna Cassell: Yeah, this, this book was so rich. I just want the listeners to know you really need to read this book. Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I also have this impulse to just, there's so much I want to talk to you about, but I actually just want to be in [00:37:00] silence with you for a moment.
Justin Zorn: Would you want to take a moment, Leigh, to read the opening words? Or I can, and then be in silence with the
Leigh Marz: Yeah, I've got it here. Let's do that. Let's do that.
Charna Cassell: And I, I also want to say I thought of the irony of like, being on zoom, interviewing you for a podcast, all of this being more information and more material that's being put out into the world, you know, and just the desire to be in silence with you.
Leigh Marz: It's not lost on us. We get it. We really get it. And it's just that breaking, bringing in the silence like you just did. That's the perfect way, the perfect way to be with it all. Okay, so these are the opening words of the book. Chapter one, An Invitation. What's the deepest silence you've ever known? You [00:38:00] can trust the first memory that comes to you.
No need to overthink it. As you remember the experience, see if you can settle into it. Recall where you are, what's happening around you, and who, if anyone, is present. See if you can summon the atmosphere, the quality of light, the mood in the air, The feeling in your body.
Is it quiet to the ears? Or is it the kind of silence that comes when no person or thing is laying claims on your attention? Is it quiet in your nerves? [00:39:00] Or is it the kind of silence that lives deeper still? Like when the turbulent waters of internal chatter suddenly part, revealing a clear path forward.
Take a moment to consider what might sound like a strange question. Is the silence simply the absence of noise, or is it also a presence unto itself?
Charna Cassell: I'm, um,
Leigh Marz: and
Charna Cassell: these are tears of gratitude.
Leigh Marz: [00:40:00] Oh.
Charna Cassell: For me, what shows up in this space of silence is love.
Leigh Marz: Mm.
Charna Cassell: And that's not always the case, right? There's so much, if I make the choice to be distracted by the news.
Leigh Marz: Mm hmm.
Charna Cassell: Right? Which I've really been making a conscious choice to not do, , but I love the invitation that your book is.
Leigh Marz: Mm.
Charna Cassell: Yeah.
Leigh Marz: Thank you so much.
Charna Cassell: It's really beautifully written, you know, the, the narratives and the different people's stories and, and, uh, it feels like it's really full of self, a guidance to self acceptance. You know, because of this, not having it be a one size fits all, it's like what is going to work for you, what's going to guide you back to clarity and [00:41:00] intuition and connection.
Leigh Marz: And, and that you know the way, you will know the way and some part of you innately knows the way.
Justin Zorn: It's really. To me, that's poignant that you say self acceptance. I hadn't thought about it in exactly this way, or at least for a little while. But, you know, I mean, when we're thinking about this question of noise and silence, it gets to the question of, well, what is the self?
Who is the self? You know, is the self, the thoughts that are popping into your mind, you know, are the thoughts just the, the wandering winds of, of different likes and dislikes, craving and aversion, you know, just whatever, whatever thoughts are popping up, or is there, is there something deeper to the self, you know, is there a self that's beyond the internal chatter of the mind?
You know, when we look at these three levels of noise, the auditory noise in our ears, And the informational noise in our screens and then the internal noise inside our [00:42:00] heads. So once we get beyond all these different levels of noise and distraction, what's left?
Charna Cassell: Yeah.
Justin Zorn: You know, so if it's, if this is the real self, you know, then this is something that's, it's straightforward.
It's natural to accept because it's just, it's being, it's, it's pure presence.
Charna Cassell: Yeah. And that's that piece of, you also speak to in the book about there can be noise or something and then there's the reaction to the noise and how that's more noise. And you also, Leigh, can you speak to, um, this fear of control?
And managing our reactivity. I think that's a really important distinction that you made in the book.
Leigh Marz: Yeah, in fact, that comes back to Jarvis. He's really pointing us towards that. And it was his quote, which I might not get perfectly here, but that he had to quiet the [00:43:00] noise by quieting his response to the noise.
And he learned that really. Early on when he walked into his cell as a 19 year old young man and his first thought was a harmful thought he knew that I'm being buried alive in this small cell. He touched the top of his cell. He could touch the sidewalls in that 4 by 9 cell and his young self knew I've got to interrupt that thought.
I can't sit here and think I'm being buried alive, right? So he stopped there. And then later in life, he engaged Buddhism and in that very, you know, with very few choices, uh, that get, he gets to make, he started focusing in on what is the choice that he can make, what is within his sphere of control, and there isn't a lot, and for him, there's less than most all of us, and of course, we're all You know, struggling with that, but we have to find the right kind of mapping.
So what, uh, what is in our sphere of control? Um, that's really, we can [00:44:00] make it, make that choice for ourselves. So he would, you know, when, when he, he tuned into when he could actually meditate, when he could actually write, when he could actually do his practices, you know, that was in the sphere of control to some degree, what was in his sphere of influence and interestingly, his, the.
The tier, uh, the, the other inmates in the tier, um, were actually part of his in, you know, sphere of influence and some of those guys would protect his writing time, be like, Hey, leave Jarvis alone. He's writing right now. 'cause they so admired that he was writing and he was helping them write and published, you know, poems and things as well.
So he actually broadened his. Fear of influence being the compassionate, awesome being that he was to get more time for writing and more quiet, less interruptions that the men on the tiers are constantly yelling out each other's names or, or hollering or just expressing things. So it's a hard place to concentrate and write, for example, to bestselling New York times, bestselling books.
Yeah. So, so anyway, so [00:45:00] spirit control, sphere of influence, and then that, which is out of. Your control. You do try to let it go. That's the practice. , so that we can find those areas of, um, our, our places of control and of influence and influences a lot of the relational things like in our home or sharing, you know, sharing our home or sharing our workplaces or anytime we share space, public space as well, we may just be in a place of being able to negotiate and have conversations that are not your typical conversations.
We're not often talking about this. Okay. But, you know, how do we feel about, , playing music and default to, to music and, you know, uh, in the house or podcast listening, you're listening to a podcast, I'm not listening to it. Like, what do we, you know, what do we think about that? I have thoughts about that or public spaces.
And I find it fascinating as we travel around the world, like how a train feels in Japan, it's like, you could, you could hear a pin drop, it's so quiet. Um, that sense of shared space in a wee culture, like, like Japanese culture is. [00:46:00] The relationship to noise is different than it is here in the United States.
So anyway, we don't have control over everything, but we do have some influence. And in those places, can we take it into a place of meditation and let go when we don't?
Charna Cassell: And you point to something so important, which is, um, you know, we may value something. It's not necessarily what's available automatically and supported by our culture or our environment for prison, etc.
Yeah. You go, you get into so much in your book, it covers so much. So one of the one of the stories in the book is about complacency is noise. And while true silence allows compassion and understanding. And I and I so I was really thinking about what are the things that contribute to complacency?
And I would love for one of you to speak about this.
Justin Zorn: Yeah, I
mean, we, we really looked at the notion, [00:47:00] this, this cultural current that's real, that silence is violence, you know, a person's refusal to speak up in the face of injustice can be a cause of injustice, you know, I mean, like the, the title of the book, Silent Spring, launched so much of the environmental.
movement. And, you know, the silence is death posters around New York City, around, you know, silence around, around AIDS. And, and, you know, it's, it's a real thing that the refusal to speak up and act in the face of injustice, you know, is a cause. Of violence and destruction and poverty and so many ills in the world.
And at the same time, there's a different kind of silence. There's a different level to silence that I think as we talk about in the book is different from this kind of like closed lipped complacency. Because. Especially now, in [00:48:00] this time where it's often a kind of distracted coping mechanism to get online, to just write whatever comes to our head, to just consume more news, to just get immersed in the noise.
There's a kind of silence that entails really working to tune in to what's being called of us. Really working to have the discernment to figure out the most skillful way to act. So, you know, we're living in kind of a, you know, constant reality TV, social media world. Like sometimes what seems like speaking out can be in contrast to the real discernment that's going to help us find a solution way forward.
It's not an either or, because again, that closed lipped complacency can be a real thing. And on the other hand, that kind of knee jerk reaction to always seek more and more mental stimulation. Back to the beginning of our conversation, this kind of [00:49:00] assumption that more information, more mental stuff is always the answer.
That assumption may not be what leads us to our, our liberation, leads us to what's right and what's true.
Charna Cassell: Yeah. I love that. It's not so much of what's in your book. It's not black and white. I just keep coming back to how, how the, how nuanced everything is. What were you going to say, Leigh?
Leigh Marz: Building on what, uh, , Justin was saying in terms of, um, , looking at when silence is oppressive and enforced and the difference, like that's not the silence, of course, that we're writing about, but we needed to write about it.
We moved into really how silence is the work of justice for us and for so many like MLK you mentioned and for Gandhi who took every Monday to be in silence no matter what was going on and a lot was going on and he would step out of, , the, the need to speak and [00:50:00] respond. he might still attend meetings and conferences and things, but he would say nothing.
And then on Tuesday his people around him said he would just emerge and just speak without notes and just this amazing rapturous flow of clarity. So we figured if Gandhi can do that. You know, we understand and really bow to the activists, the advocates, where there's about speaking truth to power, as the Quakers say, and also see silence as the work of justice to really get clear about what it is we're speaking to and how and when exactly.
Yeah.
Charna Cassell: Beautiful. And can you share some, whether there's an, you could share one exercise that you'd like to guide us through or just a list of different ways that people can create more moments of silence in their life.
Leigh Marz: [00:51:00] We hit on some of the individual ones where you might just, for example, um, uh, take little hits of nature, we'll call it little hits of nature, just step outside to, to, um, interrupt the flow of perhaps a lot of, Taking in of media or, um, meetings back to back, but really point towards a, a Japanese principle called ma, this, where the emptiness is as, um, valued as the filled space, for example, in the Ikebana flower arrangement arts, you, some of your listeners might be familiar with.
The beautiful, sparse, though, flowers and petals of an arrangement and the silent areas, the quiet areas around the arrangement are as part of the design as the actual petals and flowers themselves. So that appreciation for the empty space and the pure potentiality in that empty space is something we can bring into our lives.
We think about those transition moments from Some from A to B, [00:52:00] like maybe, like I've said, what from one room to another, where we just sort of take a moment of breath as we hold the, the doorknob and enter another room, or, you know, as we, one of our interviewees, he, he He takes a breath as he opens like a new document or changes modes in, in his meetings and stuff.
So if we really think about those transitions and differently and bring a little bit of spaciousness to that, it doesn't mean scheduling anything any differently, necessarily just a beat, just a breath, and it can go a long way to giving, bringing a little silence, infusing it into our days.
Charna Cassell: Thank you.
Justin Zorn: One practice.
Related, all these practices are related, but a specific one that I really love is, is what we call take your to do list for a hike, which is something we got from Gordon Hampton, who's an acoustic ecologist, would have this long to do list and he would print it out when he was at his office in Seattle and just like, feel [00:53:00] overwhelmed.
And then he would, he would take a trip about four hours away, you know, two hours of driving, another two hours of hiking to the quietest place he could find, which in his case in the whole rainforest in Olympic National Park was like a very quiet place. Doesn't need to be somewhere that quiet, but somewhere deep in nature, as deep as you can realistically get in nature.
And take the time to just tune in and get out of the cell signal, get out of all the everyday vibrations and worries and neuroses of life. And after you feel like you've gotten really quiet and you're really tuned into the natural world, pull out your to do list and cross off everything that isn't really essential.
And he would find that when he would do this practice, like really do this practice, he could take months of obligations off of his to do list. So it's about it's really to me this gets to the essence of what we're talking about about, you know Noticing the noise [00:54:00] and tuning into the silence like how can we really tune into this this more back to your term?
You know contracted versus expanded. How do we tune into this? Expanded state of consciousness and then how do we navigate life from this more expanded place?
Charna Cassell: I've felt I've been looking forward to this conversation and have felt your presence, the book's presence with me in all the little activities that I do, like I work and I have a garden, but also even doing a puzzle. I did a puzzle for the first time in 40 years. And I was very much thinking about the space, the spaces, like the empty space or the outline of things, or, and I was just like this, there's so many opportunities.
Mm hmm. Throughout our day. In the smallest, unexpected ways, you know, to appreciate the, the silence around things, in between things.
Leigh Marz: [00:55:00] I think that.
Charna Cassell: Yeah. Thank you so much. Anything else that is essential that you feel like you really want to make sure that listeners know or take away?
Justin Zorn: The big idea is really that, that the problems we're facing as humanity and as individuals might not be solved with more thinking or talking. You know, the solutions might be found in the, the open space between the mental stuff. It's just a, a little hypothesis to explore.
Leigh Marz: Mm. I love that.
Charna Cassell: Mm hmm. Beautiful.
So good to spend time with you.
Leigh Marz: Charna, this has been awesome. Thank you so much. I'm so much quieter.
Justin Zorn: Me too. Me too. I was running around from parenting and plumbing and political, dealing with plumbers and political meetings. And this has been such a, such a balm for me.
Charna Cassell: Oh, thank you. [00:56:00] I know. I felt like the moment where I finally, like I let myself just have a little tears and ask for the silence that I want it.
I want it. I just wanted to be in silence with you, but I was like, how do I do that? It's a podcast.
Leigh Marz: Yeah. Yeah. I love that you did.
Charna Cassell: Yeah. Oh, I really I'm just also in case you don't have contacts, Justin, we were in a writing group together. And so this was like, This was, I think it was before the book even was, it was just an idea, and so this is, I'm just so, I'm so, it's not for me to say that I'm proud of you, but I'm just, I'm so in honor and just, I love that you birthed this into the world, so, thank you for being her birthing partner.
Leigh Marz: Yeah, yeah, thank you for bearing witness, yeah, thank you so much for that.
Charna Cassell: I know what it takes, man, that's just. Yeah. You did it. So. Beautiful. Thank you.
Leigh Marz: Thank you, Justine.
Justin Zorn: Thanks
so much. Take care.
Charna Cassell: Alright. Bye.
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Charna Cassell: Thank you so much for joining us. I hope you enjoyed the episode, and if you did, please like rate, review and share it with your friends. It's much appreciated and it helps people find us.
And if you'd like to stay connected, you can find me on Instagram at Late Open podcast.
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This Has been The Late Open Podcast with your [00:59:00] host, Charna Cael. We all have different capacities, but I believe in our capacity to grow and change together
