Henry dropped to his knees, his bare toes finding the damp soil underneath the pine needles and leaves. He remained in that position for a quarter hour, unmoving, breathing slowly and deeply, watching the sky. Listening. The silent edge of dusk spread across the hillside. A luminous dark blue and purple void appeared to welcome the first star. And Henry, with loving respect for things he did not know, for what Cicero had called the unseen force that guides the body and guides the world, yielded to that unknown and unknowable force. He would rest in this pool of unknowing for as long a time as he was granted.
I am discovering that Silence is not a concept, an idea, not the familiar "absence of sound." Instead, I "enter" silence as if I were to open a door, cross a threshold, and enter a room. Silence is substantive, tactile, like material. I feel its layers. It has depth like water, shallow or deep. I immerse myself in it. It is like water, supportive. I lay back in it. It is buoyant or it can draw me down. I think about whether or not it has a bottom, a ground. Perhaps its bottom turns into a top at some point, just as going east eventually leads west. I feel secure in the way it totally envelops. It is pleasurable yet mysterious.
Mark Van Doren wrote about "the [silent] web of the world, how thick and how thin, ancient and full of grace." What a lovely vocation for me to spend the rest of my years playing with the secrets of that shining place.