A quiet settles on the hills
Augmented by the birds,
Everything is softer --
A time for fewer words.
A time best spent listening
To the voices of the land,
How softly winter guides us
With her wondrous hand.
~ Peter Rinehart
The notion of silence appears to unsettle—or puzzle—no small number of people of all walks of life...Something as "unproductive" as silence is not often taken seriously. The evaluation of silence differs from culture to culture. In the West, if you notice that someone is silent for a prolonged period of time, the tendency might be to ask, "are you all right?" Or the silence might be interpreted as a sign of unbalanced introversion or isolation or passive aggression. In India, they would say of the silent one, Ah muni! (Ah, there is a holy soul!)