In the library this weekend I picked up a book called Listening Below the Noise by Anne LeClaire. I've almost finished it, would have already had I not decided to savor the final chapter. The book grew from the author's decision some years ago to spend a day in silence. The day brought her such peace and creative energy that she decided to spend every other Monday without speaking.
LeClaire has since become a prophet of silence, giving workshops, writing the book. The compromises she proposes — making time for a quiet morning, shutting off e-mail, slowly eating a juicy apple — graft a monastic habit onto a hectic modern life. They seem realistic enough that most any of us could finagle them.
For me they reaffirm the connection between silence and creativity, the need to withdraw in order to produce, to quiet one's self in order to speak.