“Silence is not an absence but a presence, not emptiness but repletion. Silence is something more than just a pause; it is the enchanted space in which things open up, and surfaces fall away, and we find ourselves in the midst of absolutes. In silence, we often say, we can hear ourselves think; but what is truer to say, is that we can hear ourselves not think, and so sink beneath our daily selves, into a place deeper than mere thought allows. Silence is a way of clearing space and staying time; of opening out, so that horizon itself expands, and the air is transparent as glass."