I draw prayer round me like a dark protective wall, withdraw inside it as one might into a convent cell and then step outside again, calmer and stronger and more collected again.
~ Etty Hillsum
Silence foreshadows and houses that fertile consciousness of Being (the unitive state) within all of us. Progressively, silence calls us into this awareness, until at some point we live in it, or realize it lives us. Then, each leaf, flower or bud reminds us of that Heart or Reality or Void in which we all have our life and being.