Voices
from Silence
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A 'first Friday of the month' series, from October 2024.
Personal stories of engaging in silence by practitioners from the Global Majority Heritage (GMH) or Black and Indigenous Peoples of Colour (BIPOC) communities.* |
A quarter of the way into the new millennium the reality for many people from this community is that their lives and stories are sidelined. Their voices are silenced.
So, although people from GMH/ BIPOC communities may have a spiritual practice of silence, authors from these communities tend to write more about their experiences of silencing than of engagement with silence-based prayer.
This new series is a way to bring some voices from the GMH/ BIPOC communities into the conversations and resources about silence on the Seeds of Silence website.
So, although people from GMH/ BIPOC communities may have a spiritual practice of silence, authors from these communities tend to write more about their experiences of silencing than of engagement with silence-based prayer.
This new series is a way to bring some voices from the GMH/ BIPOC communities into the conversations and resources about silence on the Seeds of Silence website.
June 2025:
Brooke Prentis, 'Beyond Silence - Deep Listening: A Gift for All'
Image: Brooke Prentis, from Luritja Country, Tanami Desert, Northern Territory, Australia
Brooke Prentis, Wakka Wakka Country, Goomeri, Australia
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Listen to Brooke reading 'Beyond Silence - Deep Listening: A Gift for All'
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Beyond Silence - Deep Listening: A Gift for All
I am an Indigenous person of the lands now called Australia. An Aboriginal person, a Wakka Wakka person.
There are over 300 nations of Aboriginal peoples in the lands now called Australia. Together, we are regarded as peoples of the world’s oldest, living, continuing, cultures.
Wakka Wakka nation is where over 2,000 generations of my family’s story is written in creation. It is the place of the Bunya Pines and native grasslands, of the Green Catbird and Eastern Whipbird, of the Whiptail wallaby, and of waterholes, waterfalls, and creeks. A place of physical, cultural, and spiritual connection.
Silence is a word that is complex and layered.
Silence is deeply tied to the history of colonization, dispossession, and the systemic erasure of my peoples, Aboriginal peoples, voices and cultures. The term evokes painful memories of Aboriginal massacres and of Elders past and present being punished for speaking their languages, as well as, the broader national amnesia described as “The Great Australian Silence”—the refusal of many non-Indigenous Australians to acknowledge the atrocities of colonization and its ongoing impacts.
Pre-colonisation there were over 600 dialects of Aboriginal languages in Australia, in 2021 it was reported over 150 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages were still spoken, however, only about 20 are considered strong, with many being revitalized and many endangered.
Silence is a word not easily translated from English to our Aboriginal languages. Silence in Aboriginal language and culture is not simply the absence of sound, but an act of deep listening – with ears, eyes, mind, heart, and whole being. Deep Listening is an Aboriginal cultural practice. It is known as Dadirri in the Ngangi-kuru-ngkurr language and winanga-li in the Kamilaroi language. In the absence of human sounds, all of creation can be heard.
This is reflected in the Bible in Job 12:7-10. It reminds us that the animals, the birds, the earth, the fish and indeed the oceans, sky, land, and rivers, all of God’s wondrous creation are connected, precious, to be cared for, and can teach, tell, speak, and inform us. Indigenous wisdom known for millennia. The closest I have come to silence, as the absence of sound, was being in the centre of Australia on Luritja Country. In the desert. At night. No lights, no cars, no machinery. The next people hundreds of kilometres away. Silence? Then, I looked to the sky. Every star, group of stars, and space between the stars had a story. And it was as though the stories were being spoken to me all at once. The sound was deafening.
Stories taught to my people thousands of years ago from Creator and passed from generation to generation to generation. Stories found in rock paintings, in how the mountains came to be, held in the Eucalyptus trees, carried on the flow of the rivers. Stories sung by the wind that sing a beautiful symphony like a psalm. Deep listening practiced for millennial and a gift to all today.
It is through moving beyond imposed silence and into deep listening, that we can honour the voices, stories, and wisdom of Indigenous peoples and hear the call of Creator so that we will respond with action that will see healing and a flourishing of all peoples, of all creation, across all of the world.
Beyond Silence - Deep Listening: A Gift for All
I am an Indigenous person of the lands now called Australia. An Aboriginal person, a Wakka Wakka person.
There are over 300 nations of Aboriginal peoples in the lands now called Australia. Together, we are regarded as peoples of the world’s oldest, living, continuing, cultures.
Wakka Wakka nation is where over 2,000 generations of my family’s story is written in creation. It is the place of the Bunya Pines and native grasslands, of the Green Catbird and Eastern Whipbird, of the Whiptail wallaby, and of waterholes, waterfalls, and creeks. A place of physical, cultural, and spiritual connection.
Silence is a word that is complex and layered.
Silence is deeply tied to the history of colonization, dispossession, and the systemic erasure of my peoples, Aboriginal peoples, voices and cultures. The term evokes painful memories of Aboriginal massacres and of Elders past and present being punished for speaking their languages, as well as, the broader national amnesia described as “The Great Australian Silence”—the refusal of many non-Indigenous Australians to acknowledge the atrocities of colonization and its ongoing impacts.
Pre-colonisation there were over 600 dialects of Aboriginal languages in Australia, in 2021 it was reported over 150 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages were still spoken, however, only about 20 are considered strong, with many being revitalized and many endangered.
Silence is a word not easily translated from English to our Aboriginal languages. Silence in Aboriginal language and culture is not simply the absence of sound, but an act of deep listening – with ears, eyes, mind, heart, and whole being. Deep Listening is an Aboriginal cultural practice. It is known as Dadirri in the Ngangi-kuru-ngkurr language and winanga-li in the Kamilaroi language. In the absence of human sounds, all of creation can be heard.
This is reflected in the Bible in Job 12:7-10. It reminds us that the animals, the birds, the earth, the fish and indeed the oceans, sky, land, and rivers, all of God’s wondrous creation are connected, precious, to be cared for, and can teach, tell, speak, and inform us. Indigenous wisdom known for millennia. The closest I have come to silence, as the absence of sound, was being in the centre of Australia on Luritja Country. In the desert. At night. No lights, no cars, no machinery. The next people hundreds of kilometres away. Silence? Then, I looked to the sky. Every star, group of stars, and space between the stars had a story. And it was as though the stories were being spoken to me all at once. The sound was deafening.
Stories taught to my people thousands of years ago from Creator and passed from generation to generation to generation. Stories found in rock paintings, in how the mountains came to be, held in the Eucalyptus trees, carried on the flow of the rivers. Stories sung by the wind that sing a beautiful symphony like a psalm. Deep listening practiced for millennial and a gift to all today.
It is through moving beyond imposed silence and into deep listening, that we can honour the voices, stories, and wisdom of Indigenous peoples and hear the call of Creator so that we will respond with action that will see healing and a flourishing of all peoples, of all creation, across all of the world.
Brooke Prentis, June, 2025.
Brooke Prentis is an Indigenous woman from the lands that are now called Australia, specifically, from the Wakka Wakka peoples. Brooke is an Aboriginal Christian Leader who is a writer, speaker, educator, theologian, and poet.
To hear more from Brooke on deep listening as she reads her beautiful poem, 'Listen Deeply: An Ancient Call for Today', over a video of evocative images, click the picture.
* The terms 'Global Majority Heritage' (GMH) and 'Black and Indigenous Peoples of Colour' (BIPOC) refers to people whose backgrounds are from non-Western, non-White ethnic and cultural groups, reflecting the fact that the majority of the world’s population comes from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. These terms acknowledge the rich heritage of ancient Indigenous communities and challenge the traditional framing of racial and ethnic minorities by emphasizing that these populations are, in fact, the global majority.
(If you receive the weekly 'Quoting Silence' email you will automatically receive the Voices from Silence email.)
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