At the Basilica of St.Francis in Assisi, there was a tall, thin priest whose duty appeared to be one thing. Every few minutes, as the din from the voices of many tourists became annoying, he says :"Silencio".Poor man with a hopeless task. Not hard to know what he is requesting. I appreciated his efforts because I didn't travel thousands of miles to talk but to soak up the sacredness and it was difficult with the chatter. Talking to and hearing from the Spirit , for me, requires some quiet.
And so again , with snake proof boots on and an extraordinary blue sky above , I went to the river seeking "silencio.".
Journal notes 2-14-2014.
..".the log holds a writer who comes as a witness to silence. Just water, trees and bird trills. Nothing else is here but an emptiness that feeds my spirit. I need this. The sun wraps its rays around my face and hands and glistens on the brown water...."
"This is the silence that poets and saints yearn after. Only the birds are busily present. A Barred Owl and something else explode in sound across the river .This must have aroused the cows over there to complain but only for a minute and it is still again."
"There is one lone Beech here that refuses to drop its leaves and they stand out in tan/beige among all the other bare trees. A very strange green bush is growing out there in the water, attached to a dead log. Floating southward , a small thin brown leaf turns sideways .Alone, drifting."
This land that I live on was once a huge farm and there are still places where rusted barbed wire goes from tree trunk to tree trunk.The cows are long gone, the farmer , a memory, and one day this writer will be shuffled off to somewhere else. But this spot, this dead log that sits by the river's edge, has been my church for years and I breathe in its air with gratitude.
