Monastery

Many of my summers involve pilgrimage; two summers ago I headed to Alaska for an eight-day silent retreat. While there, I learned that there is layering to silence. There is that first bump into the silence of not speaking to anyone else, of avoiding eye contact because it is an intrusive form of communication. Then there is the second layer of internal silence. It was in the search for and practice of that silence that made me see the world differently and let me experience serenity. Sometimes I can visit that place of silence in the 'real' world, or in Shavasana at the end of my yoga practice. There is something visually silent in the wide open prairie that reminds me of it. Kathleen Norris speaks of this in her book Dakota:

Both Plains and monastery are places where distractions are at a minimum and you must rely on your own resources, only to find yourself utterly dependent on forces beyond your control; where time seems to stand still, as it does in the liturgy; where your life is defined by waiting. (17-18)

Maybe seeing the Plains is like seeing an icon: what seems stern and almost empty is merely open, a door in some simple and holy state. (157)