Our homes will be very quiet at this time. But I have often found that the quieter my surroundings, the more vividly I sense my connection with you all. It's as if, in solitude, the soul develops organs of which we're hardly aware in everyday life.
Native American Indians value silence and recommend it in stories and pointed sayings ... "Listen, or your tongue will make you deaf" ... "No flies come into a closed mouth" ... and a clause in an Indian prayer, "Oh my Grandfather, may I lose no good opportunity to hold my tongue." They feel comfortable in silence, and are often irritated, or at best amused, by our "windmill machine" of constant chatter. Silence, "going behind the blanket," removing oneself from useless or annoying contact are highly developed techniques, second nature to the Indian way.