To begin to enter into the profound silence that resides in the depths of our beings is to begin to enter the realm of the Godhead beyond God. Beyond speech, beyond apprehension, is a realm of generative actuality, the realm of essential being out of which the Word is eternally begotten. Our silence is bothand the clear road by which the Word proceeds most directly into our hearts.
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.