The silence of the storm dominated everything. There are no words to describe a quiet so potent. I knew the snow was echoing a stillness that exists, hidden, in everything. I do not understand how I suddenly knew this, but the knowledge filled me. I saw that this stillness generates all life. And sitting there in the snow, I wept at the profound sound and power of that silence. It was hard to witness its beauty, knowing I'd lived many years never suspecting it was there.
The task of making peace ... is not just a matter of realpolitik; it is a matter also of spirit. It requires us not only to deal with the practicalities of our place in the cosmic order of things. We must know who we are and what we are doing -- know not only with the intellect, but with our whole being, in the way that mystics have always achieved the knowledge that has given our species its deepest guidance.
