Excerpt
The silence here, when my noisy head lets me hear it, is overwhelming at times. I stand out in the meadow in the light of a first-quarter moon, the council of trees around me, the distant wash of the river drifting up from below, and I feel huge and small at the same time, utterly privileged to be alive in this ancient presence so thoroughly oblivious to me and to anything human. I want to meet that silence, honor it, with an authentic silence of my own, and I don't know if I can. I don't know if I'm worthy of it. I've been here not even a month, and the four months yet to go look like a very long time. I can do it, I think, but I don't want to just tough it out, just run out a string of days. I guess I came with a bigger ambition than I admitted to myself. I want to break through into some new state, some new seeing, some certain realization to take me through the rest of my years, and I'm afraid it won't happen.