What is the sound of listening? A resonating silence, like the infinite fine line between a grey sky and the ocean, where the horizon cannot be distinguished. My soul blends into the silence around me. Into that silence comes a voice:

"I love you. Do not be afraid. I am with you. I give you my peace. You are always with me."

The words sound sweet and tender, gentler than any human voice.

"Blessed are you. Blessed are you. Blessed," says the silence.

Conversation was never begun at once, nor in a hurried manner. No one was quick with a question, no matter how important, and no one was pressed for an answer. A pause giving time for thought was the truly courteous way of beginning and conducting a conversation. Silence was meaningful with the Lakota, and their granting a space of silence to the speech-makers and their own moment of silence before talking was done in the practice of true politeness, listening, and regard for the rule, "thought comes before speech."

Every moment is like a gift. And since it is, relax, get into the moment and do all you can to listen to it. I mean, really, really listen. Be present to the moment with everything you. It takes practice. After you've listened for a while, you start responding. You give back because you begin to see how everything is on loan — a gift from God... Try listening, looking. Looking and listening lead into everything else. Real listening means you don't project yourself into the situation. You simply are receptive, seeing things as they are, not as you might wish them to be. Listen!

If we listen, we will hear. If we are quiet, the sound increases. ... And so does the Silence, And so do we.

To move slowly and deliberately through the world, listening and attending to one thing at a time, strikes us as radically subversive, even un-American. We cringe from the idea of relinquishing in any moment, all but one of infinite possibilities offered us by our culture. Plagued by a highly diffused attention, we give ourselves to everything lightly. This is our poverty. In saying yes to everything, we attend to nothing. One can only love what one stops to observe. "Nothing is more essential to prayer," said Evagrius, "than attentiveness."

For all its silence, the sky has a language. Without any words the stars speak many things right into our hearts. They hand there so silent and radiant — and how one's breast swells at the thought of being able to attain the same purity. At times it seems as if their light is of little benefit. Yet is is by them that we measure hours, days, and years. By them — or at least by the star nearest to us, the sun — we have light and heart, and our existence depends on it.

For humankind, a growing gap between our inner selves and outer selves — an imbalance between how we live our lives and how we would like to live them — leaves the spirit thirsting for renewal. For many, renewal and re-creation come with time spent in the natural world. The human spirit and the open landscape are inextricably connected. In feeling the spirit of place, we reconnect with the spirit of self.

Within the universe, the planet Earth with all its wonder is the place for the meeting of the divine and the human.

A down feather as soft as an infant's curl floats earthward and brushes the granite rock by my side. It feels like a message from above, and I wonder what it is telling me. I pick up this angel-wisp and hold it to my cheek. I feel it as a caress, a gentle and loving touch, and I realize that this IS the message — one that transcends words, concepts, and thoughts. It touches my heart and a place of inner knowing. In that moment I am complete, thankful, and fully at peace.

Speak to the earth, and it will teach thee.

We are, each of us, passive participants in an explosion still in progress. The sparks continue to fly, and in its rhythm, the universe is still expanding from that ancient blast. We are, as they say, star dust, by-products of the Big Bang. In this light, everything is connected, all creation evolving from the same Source, in a process which continues. We are kin to the stars, part of a universal family.