When I first began to enter the Silence, it felt like an alien atmosphere filled with menacing voices, capricious thoughts, uncomfortable feelings. But as the days and weeks passed, the Silence became a welcoming friend, a presence like the warmth of a fire in which I encountered the Divine Lover of my soul and experienced my Self as God's Beloved.
I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a child quieted at its mother's breast;
like a child that is quieted
is my soul ...