When your ears aren't filled with chatter and the cacophony of negativity, and your life is free of stress-generated mindless actions and the prolonged cleanup operations that result from the subsequent mess, then the still, small voice of spirit may be heard. The music of the universe becomes louder and louder in the silence generated by the absence of charged auto-chatter, and we are able to hear the whispered instructions of the soul, the rustle of angel wings, and the divine harmony of the spheres.'
I thought about the perfection of the morning, tried to name what it is about the morning that is different from the rest of the day. Is it the stillness? And, I thought, often on Sundays there is an all-day silence, or on rainy days or during off seasons; whatever this perfection might be, it's more than the absence of noises made by humans and their machines... In the purity of the morning, I understand how much more there is to the world than meets the eye...
~ from THE PERFECTION OF THE MORNING: AN APPRENTICESHIP IN NATURE by Sharon Butala
I was learning to live in Nature, shaping my life, my everyday activities in a direct way according to the weather, the seasons, the rising and setting of the sun and moon. I was once again becoming aware of Nature's all-powerful presence. If anyone had asked me, I would still have been unable to say what might be learned from Peter asleep among his animals on the prairie as I had seen him that first summer, but I was learning it. I was learning it slowly, painfully, in solitude and silence and out of my own experience.
~ from THE PERFECTION OF THE MORNING by Sharon Butala
