Silence is actually time you are hearing, a vibration rather than absence of sound. There is always something to see, something to hear. There are ambient sounds all around us, even in silence, especially in silence: wind, birdsong, insects. Perhaps the silence is the stillness we seek in the natural world, born of solitude, where our capacity to listen is heightened by our ability to embrace quiet.

When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice, by Terry Tempest Williams, paraphrased p. 61