“When silence is held, mystery is revealed.” Karina Blackheart
- To know
- To dare
- To will
- To keep silent
Silence is one of a witch’s greatest powers. The fourth point in the pyramid of power, its position on the bottom of the list is not indicative of its importance, but more a profound function. It is a gift which holds deepening, a fierce wisdom, and transformational authority so sought by many but growing ever more elusive in our overly verbal society. Less about keeping secrets and far more focused on the assimilation of the three previous tenants, there can be no divine evolution of self without the limitless void that silence provides. For early Scandinavian and Norse societies this pregnant darkness had a name, Ginnungagap.
On old maps, Ginnungagap was often used to represent the boundaries of the known and the unknow world. An empty position full of possibilities and endless wonder, it held space for all things and nothing simultaneously. Spiritually it is the “gaping void” which holds only pure magical force within it. The liminal link between the end of one world and the beginning of another, it is the pregnant eternity that germinates the essence of evolution and creativity. No divine beings exist within it- the chaotic harmony of nature suspended in the womb of the dark mother. Not a place that can be entered through sheer will, it must be surrendered to and allowed to absorb us completely for its essence to be accessed.
In the ancient void of Ginnungagap, a singularity, or undefined point, catalyzed or burst into existence. This occurred in an incomprehensibly finite amount of time, and scientists have theorized the temperature was 100 million trillion trillion kelvins (180 million trillion trillion degrees Fahrenheit). I know that temperature looks like something a toddler would use, but the heat was far too intense for our basic measurement systems. The profound power of Muspelheim tore through the void and within seconds the expanding universe had cooled enough for subatomic particles to form atoms through nucleosynthesis, an incredibly nerdy term that sets my heart on fire! This authentic primordial soup of dense, (think 400,000 times as dense as water), matter provided the foundation for the great scream as Ymir, the first crude chaotic consciousness awoke.
Ymir’s silent scream, ushering their birth, emulated after the collision of the primordial fires of Muspellheim and ice of Niflheim, resulting in the first vibrational components of this universe. A hermaphroditic giant, Ymir was the first being and represents the extreme chaos which supports creation. Noise is created by sound waves propagating through a medium, typically air, therefore the “big bang”, as it is colloquially known, was a silent event as there were no such molecules for sound to travel through at the time. The first proto molecules did not form for another 400,000 years.
Nuclear resonance is responsible for many kinds of atomic nuclei that exist today and is critical to the fusion reactions that facilitate simple atoms into more complex ones. Particles can propagate from the vacuum of empty space if blasted with the right frequency hard enough as they resonate and dance within their quantum fields. Such a profound sparkle of vibratory creation bursting from the pregnant void. Light proto gas particles became the matrix for gravitational waves to proliferate, resulting in ripples through spacetime. Such liminal waves, Ymir’s scream, still echo throughout the universe today, but are obscured by the crackle of more recent events such as the merging of neutron stars and black hole collisions.
Silence is not a placeholder for power.
The vacuum of space is not empty simply because you cannot conceive of its geometry. The magic of the deep well does not offer its secrets surrounded by unrelenting chatter. Only through seeming emptiness and the intensity germinating within the temporary suspension of chaos can primordial wisdom burst forth. Some of the most powerful manifestations result from the cultivation of the silent howl. The ability to wield intense energy internally without yielding a flicker or minute sound to reveal your intention.
The most important part of music is the space between the notes, the peak of the sound wave before it ascends, the pauses in the echo of the reverberation of spacetime.
Recede and claim your full potential.
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References:
https://sciencing.com/temperature-universe-during-big-bang-4822.html
https://www.space.com/661-sound-waves-left-imprint-universe.html
https://phys.org/news/2020-12-technique-sift-universe-gravitational.html
