A new Danish version of the Norwegian book “Stillhetens Psykologi” edited by Are Holen will hit the streets in not too long. “Stillhetens Psykologi” (literally translated “The Psychology of Silence”) is a basic book about Acem Meditation, a meditation technique fom Norway. My favourite part of the book is the last chapter, called “Silence”. In this chapter it is described in a poetic way how meditation can make it possible to get in touch with more silent parts of our existence. One sentence goes: “Sjelen kan få hviske oss i øret om noe ulevet”, meaning something like “The soul can whisper us in the ear about something unlived.” This sentence reminds me of a song by Carla Bruni, the French singer-songwriter and earlier topmodel who is now French president Nicolas Sarkozy’s wife. In the song Péché d’envie she sings about everything she wants to have done in her life:

“I want to have done, said, been, understood, bitten, slipped, cherrished…” and the list goes on. She also asks the Devil to forgive her all her beautiful desires… The parallell between meditation and Carla Bruni’s song might seem far fetched. Nevertheless, many of the desires mentioned in Péché d’envie could manifest themselves through the spontaneous activity during Acem Meditation.  In Carla’s song the desires come through an exhaustive list of words, during Acem Meditation they might come in a  more subtle way.