Deep silence cleanses the soul.

Byline: FROM HEART TO HEART By Simone d'Aubigne For The Register-Guard

The other weekend in a workshop, another woman and I were sharing stories about our sons. She told me about her son who had been doing very well in school and then had slipped into bad grades and drug use. She and the boy's father decided to home-school him.

One aspect of his being home-schooled was several weeks spent on a sailboat. When the mother asked her son about the experience, he replied that at first it seemed like there was a lot of chatter in his head, but ultimately his mind had become empty. Her comment back was that now perhaps he could make healthier choices.

I have been thinking about that sequence of events and seeing how much the boy's process matches my spiritual practice. As a child, I lived on a farm. I never stood still or did one thing for very long. This frequently resulted in some bad choices. But once, I remember traipsing through snowy fields until I was utterly exhausted and then stopping to listen to a drop of melted snow fall to the ground. I stood there in the silent expanse and felt perfectly right in the vastness of the universe.

When I grew older, I was drawn to Buddhist ideals but found that meditation was very difficult for me. Also, around that time I discovered long-distance running. It was in that mode that I once again found the deep silence that I had discovered as a child.

I began to watch the process I went through on my five- to 15-mile runs. At first I would think of all the things that I needed or wanted to do. Then I might think about recent conversations that had happened or that might happen. The `current event mode' would slowly pass into the emotion mode, where all the backlog of unacknowledged emotions would well up and be dealt with.

Sometimes it would be anger, sometimes sadness. On rarer occasions, happy feelings would rise up. Sometimes these emotions were from recent events, sometimes from the past. They would stew around for a while, maybe leave only to return in another mile or so. Eventually, though, all of the emotions would pass through.

Then I had the space to meditate on a Buddhist thought. Soon, though, this would even evaporate and I would feel expansive silence. In this silence, there was no distinction between my body, the air and the trail. I was not my thoughts or my emotions. I just was, and clarity of my place in the world would pour into me.

I can't run long distances now, but I continue to proceed to this silence in other ways. I find it on Sunday mornings in Quaker meeting. I find it being an artist. It comes to me hiking, swimming or in working in my garden. Spirit is always there, waiting for me. It is always waiting to give me clarity. I just need to move through the steps to receive.

Simone d'Aubigne is a spiritual artist who studies Hinduism, Buddhism and Christianity and is a member of the Eugene Friends Meeting. This column is coordinated by Two Rivers Interfaith Ministries, a network of more than 35 spiritual traditions in the Eugene-Springfield area. For more information, call 344-5693 or visit www.interfaitheugene.org.