Voices

One of my students at RC (an excellent thinker and deeply spiritual leader) . . . Shalmar Hylton . . . read this to our class recently. I think it is absolutely brilliant.


"All nature speaks with an articulate voice: everything in it is song, music and sound. All beings whisper, sigh, hum, quaver, chirp, roar, howl, bellow, groan, shriek, weep or murmur. The song of the crickets, the cicadas and the frogs, and the whistling of which the stripped squires greet each other, and all the other voices of the fields are one great prayer. This is the reason for the silence observed by those contemplative monks who have dedicated their voices to the choral chant. They know that every voice is a prayer."

- Ernesto Cardenal in To Live is to Love (page 28)