One Square Inch of Silence

While meandering through a mall, with ambient canned music polluting the air, have you ever said to yourself, 'I can't hear myself think?' We are constantly being bombarded by noise. Silence is a luxury. Now, imagine how man-made noise even impacts animal life, whales, birds and tiny crickets in the great outdoors. Nature’s creatures are no longer able to hear warning signals or mating sounds due to human noise pollution. What harm noise is causing them and us!

Acoustic ecologist, Gordon Hepton, in love with nature’s music, has made it his life’s work to capture the vanishing sounds and silences of nature. Over three decades, he has witnessed their drastic decline or total disappearance.In his prologue of the co-authored book, 'One Square Inch of Silence' Hepton poignantly states, ‘Silence is not the absence of something but the presence of everything.’ In our times of never ending noise, we would do well to find and treasure those rare moments of silence where we can hear ourselves think and perhaps hear once again the still, small voice of God whispering in our hearts.

Click HERE for an interview with Gordon Hepton

Sr. Loretta Hagen, csj, Sr. Magdalena Vogt, cps, Sr. Nancy Wales, csj

One Square Inch of Silence

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph in Canada is situated on the Traditional Territories of:

the Mississauga Anishinaabeg adjacent to Haudenosaunee Territory and in the territory covered by the Williams Treaty, and Rice Lake Purchase Treaty 20

the Algonquin Anishnaabeg in the area covered by the Rideau Purchase or Treaty 27 and 27 ¼

the Anishinaabeg, the Haudenosaunee, and, the Lenape in the territory covered by Treaty 6 and Treaty 2 and,