On Sunday, February 28th, 2016, Morocco Pens, in collaboration with the Path Ahead workshops, hosted a special presentation by Iskandar Soekardi entitled “The Subtle Depths of Silence” at the ALC Community Center in Battoir, Agadir. The ALC Agadir instructor offered a thorough analysis of Billy Collins’ poem “Silence” and Rumi’s “Where Everything is Music”, alongside personal anecdotes about homeschooling, education, radio segues, and libraries. Afterward, the second half was a perusal of the 10th-century text on Spiritual Etiquette, the Epistle of Qushayri. Moroccan mint tea was served to the engaged audience, who, at times, added excellent insights themselves. The up-and-coming photographer, Kamar Erraji, was in attendance, capturing precious moments.
One of the attendees had this to comment: “Silence is a precious gift. In that space between our words, it’s where we find ourselves. When the mind is quiet, when there are no thoughts and no words to be said, we can hear our own hearts talking to us. We can hear our own soul and our own intuition”
Another said, “I learned a great deal.”
Hanane El Harbili, a university student at Ibn Zohr, commented, “The sentence that I still feel in my heart is that (the definition of) “adab” is putting things in their proper places. I like this sentence so much, so wonderful. The presentation was wonderful. I hope to attend events like this again.”
