Ed Abbey reflects on Desert Silence

More storms coming.

But for the time being, around my place at least, the air is untroubled, and I become aware for the first time today of the immense silence in which I am lost. Not silence so much as a great stillness- for there are a few sounds: the creak of some birds in a juniper tree, an eddy of wind which passes and fades like a sigh, the ticking of my watch on my wrist- slight noises which break the sensation of aboslute silence but at the same time exaggerate my sense of surrounding, overwhelming peace. A suspension of time, a continuous present.

Ed Abby- Chapter "Solitaire," Desert Solitaire