Grounded in water and earth, we, like trees are connected to our mother. With roots deep in the earth, we are called to rest in her shelter where we don't have to say or do anything, just BE. Here we can know the nurturance and comfort of a God who surrounds un in warmth and wisdom in this sheltering womb, a constant Presence in our darkness and our light.
But what is the point of silence? The point was, we learned, not mere silence, not silence to preserve some sort of order, but something much greater. In silence the idea was to recollect ourselves, to place ourselves more squarely in the presence of God than we would if people were talking to us all the time. We could pray, we could meditate, we could contemplate. . . . Silence was broken, of course, by people doing things they could not control -- coughing, sneezing, short periods of recreation, the sounds of work being done . . . But all of this merely emphasized the silence rather than disturbing it. Sounds could never absorb this silence; nothing could order it around. It concentrated itself, and from it all else flowed. Silence could never be silenced.