The things of nature are images of the silence

"The silence of nature is the primary reality. The things of nature serve only to make the silence clearly visible. The things of nature are images of the silence, exhibiting not themselves so much as the silence, like signs pointing to the place where silence is."

Max Picard,
"The World of Silence"

Photos: (Top and Middle) Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, December 27, 2014; (Bottom) Near Bellvue, CO, December 28, 2014

The things of Nature are images of the silence . . .

"The things of Nature are images of the silence, exhibiting not themselves so much as the silence, like signs pointing to the place where silence is."

Max Picard,
"The World of Silence"

Photos: (Top) Canada Geese on Watson Lake, Bellvue, CO, December 18, 2014; (Middle) Angular rock, Ponderosa Pines, and Horsetooth Reservoir, Lory State Park, CO, December 20, 2014; (Bottom) Canada Goose feather, Watson Lake, and Bellvue Dome at sunset, Bellvue, CO, December 20, 2014

The silence of Nature gives us an intuitive feeling of the great silence out of which everything arose.

"The silence of nature . . . is a blessed silence because it gives us an intuitive feeling of the great silence that was before the word and out of which everything arose."

Max Picard,
"The World of Silence"

Photos: Three different scenes at Canyonlands National Park, UT, November 28-30, 2014

The silence of nature gives us an intuitive feeling of the great silence that was before the word.

 

"The silence of nature is a blessed silence because it gives us an intuitive feeling of the great silence that was before the word and out of which everything arose"

Max Picard,
"The World of Silence"

Photos:(Top) Sunset on Bellvue Dome and Watson Lake, Bellvue, CO, November 19, 2014; (Middle) Sunrise alpenglow on the foothills, viewed across the street from my house, Larimer County, CO, November 18, 2014; (Bottom) Snowy landscape and Arthur's Rock, Lory State Park, CO, November 15, 2014

Monologue is a DIALOGUE with Silence!

Oftentimes when I'm out in Nature, thoughts about the various aspects of my life emerge full-force. Conflicts I'm having with the people I know, career difficulties, as well as my joys and dreams for the future all surface and begin chattering. At first this can seem disconcerting. After all, the reason I've taken the hike is precisely to move outside myself and to dissolve in the immense beauty of the landscape. However, my perspective becomes more enlightened when I realize that all of those thoughts are only able to occur at all because they are being mirrored back to me by the Divine Presence inhabiting the vast Silence of the landscape. As Swiss philosopher Max Picard says, "Monologue is in fact a DIALOGUE with silence."

 
In another passage, Picard employs a playful image, comparing human words to a ball that children are bouncing repeatedly against a wall. The wall, in this metaphor, is precisely the reality of Silence. Here, sacred Silence serves as a sort of mirror that reflects back to us our own thoughts, filled now with the healing power and love that perpetually inhabit that Silence. The only thing to be done during these times is to allow ourselves - together with our thoughts - to be surrounded and embraced by the immensity of the Silence. As Sigurd Olson says, we begin to have "a sense of being engulfed by something Greater." It is then that we experience the reality of divine intimacy; "hugged," as it were, by the loving presence who dwells within the Silence. 

 Photos: Agnes Lake Trail and the Nokhu Crags, Never Summer Range, CO, November 7, 2014

Things in Nature seem to be simply intense condensations of Silence.

 

"When the silence in nature is so dense that the things in nature seem to be only more intense condensations of the silence, then it seems as though man, too, ceases to possess the word, and the word is only a chink in the silence."

Max Picard,
"The World of Silence"

Photo: Notchtop Mountain and wind-carved waves of snow; Two Rivers Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO; January 20, 2014

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Monologue is a dialogue with silence.

"Monologue is a dialogue with silence."

Max Picard,
"The World of Silence"

Photo: Pink and White Heather, Picture Lake and Mount Shuksan; Mount Baker Wilderness, WA; July 22, 2013

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Silence looks at us more than we look at silence.

 

 "Silence looks at us more than we look at silence."

Max Picard,
"The World of Silence"

Photo: Ponderosa Pine and snowy landscape, Lory State Park, CO; January 4, 2013

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God uses things as language.

 

"The difference between our active thinking and the thinking of God is that God expresses Himself through things themselves, using them as language, whereas we express our thoughts only in the language of words."

Max Picard,
"The World of Silence"

Photo: Cottonwood Tree and an iced-over Horsetooth Reservoir; Larimer County, CO; January 4, 2014

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Silence gives to things inside it something of the power of its own autonomous being.

"Silence gives to things inside it something of the power of its own autonomous being.  The autonomous being in things is strengthened in silence.  That which is developable and exploitable in things vanishes when they are in silence.  The mark of the Divine in things is preserved by their connection with the world of silence."

Max Picard, "The World of Silence"

Photo: 5000 year-old Bristlecone Pine trunk, and a cone; Great Basin National Park, NV; July 30, 2012