When we enter the Stillness and listen, we feel the aliveness that is all around us. We give ourselves the opportunity to be a part of the vibrant, living, natural world. The Stillness brings a deep serenity into our hearts and a vital life force into our bodies. When we practice Entering the Silence in nature, there is no frantic separation between the creatures of the forest and the gentleness of our hearts.
All through her life, nature had been for Madeleva "beauty's self and beauty's giver." Through it, the divine revealed itself in natural ephiphanies:
Can I not find you in all winds that blow,
In the wild loneliness of lark and plover,
In slender shadow trees upon the snow?
This poem suggests that her prayers had gone beyond words; apparently, only silence could express them. If simplicity, in prayer as in life, is a sign of maturing sanctity, then Madeleva's inner life would seem to have deepened through the years.
