The Silence

The long silences of herder are not empty, but represent their blending into the cyclical processes of this land, a oneness for which words seem superfluous even in the Eveny language which was fine-tuned for use here. From Vitebsky, The Reindeer People: Living with Animals and Spirits in Siberia. This seems to capture a kind of silence that is not really silence but a listening to the music of the world, listening as it passes through you and is all around, and maybe with the one(s) that you are being silent with. It is not silence but no one is speaking.