Pitch black. Moon not yet risen, stars obscured by clouds; an immanent night light in the overcast sky nonetheless.

The depth of quiet in my life is measured tonight in the distance of the crickets’ song. Once in Virginia, I lay on the lawn at that little yellow farmhouse in the mountains, and listened, eventually for miles, to crickets, extending the space of pervasive silence.

I lay at the center of utter quiet, measured in the distance of crickets’ song. Seeking the space between breaths, I stand now in a wild place in western Colorado, following silence outward from one cricket, singing, deep inside the fernbush beside me, to the farthest cricket song of many, distantly circling, stretching the space between breaths.

Total silence only lies in the space between breaths; not in numbers or seconds, muscles or miles. In the silence between breaths lies the essence.