This is an excerpt from Susan Nettleton’s Sunday Zoom talk, Oct. 19, 2025:
Quiet is not the same thing as secret or hidden, neither is it flaunted. I am not looking at public, on stage, lights/camera's freedom, but Quiet Freedom. The definition of quiet, of course, begins with the idea of minimal noise or sound. Not silence, per se, but muted; I see quiet as the precursor to silence, as if we could sink deeper or the scene around us, could enter silence at any moment. We are on the edge of silence by becoming quiet. And quiet is not just about sound, it's about minimal movement or natural movement, moving freely if and when you move. And not about being on display, it is more discreet, or again spontaneously, easy. As I was writing my thoughts about quiet freedom last week, everything slowed down.
I was typing away on the computer, but the atmosphere quietened and the tension, the pressure loosened--freeing my movements and my thoughts. Amazing! Then I got this text from family a preliminary storm warning, headed at L.A. over the next couple of days, and a long list of "get ready now", There were possible mud slides on the burn scars, and evacuation warnings. But the quiet freedom held. I knew we need rain, but not floods! In this instance, freedom included a sense of knowing what to do and how to do it, (and really a bit of Kris Kristopher, considering the question, what is left to lose?). The inner directive was still, “take the emergency boxes and go if necessary. “ So that is the freedom to act without looking to far ahead and unnecessary calculation. The quiet freedom lingered; I watched it over the week, come and go, come and go. Still, the word quiet, changes everything.
This is not about defiant or passive aggressive freedom, which can be the challenge of youth, along with loud and/or excited freedom. When you are young, you test the boundaries of freedom, partly out of biologic drive for freedom and independence. Realistically, it is a time when you do not know the limits, --how could you know? Are there limits on freedom? Of course, our history of acquiring liberty, maintaining liberty, reclaiming liberty in society involves defiance—collective defiance. (I am using the word liberty, not that it's really an important distinction, the words are commonly used interchangeably, but I want to distinguish the awareness of a quiet freedom, beyond the energy of political events and liberty.) The whole American Independence story is build on the demand for Liberty, but Quiet Freedom, is not about a political demand or the reclaiming of political freedom, it's more an inner discovery, rather than an outer push. That inner discovery can lead you to participate in culture and awareness of the "allocation of values for society", and you take a role in the outer push, as a collective value. Or it may not. We have a broad range of beliefs. One's own sense of personal freedom doesn't necessarily mean that you support the freedom of others. On the other hand, the Quiet Freedom that I am encouraging, brings you to the awareness that others are not other, but essential aspects of the Whole of life that is our being.