At times on quiet waters one does not speak aloud but only in whispers, for then all noise is sacrilege.
     - Sigurd F. Olson

Wilderness should be sacred and quiet, just as the Indians felt in designating certain places as spirit lands where no one talked.  I have written about the Kawishiwi River country of "no place between," where the Indians always traveled quietly and spoke only in whispers. . .two of the greatest values of wilderness travel, solitude and silence.
     - Sigurd Olson, Reflections From The North Country

I remember paddling in the Baja, through some perfectly smooth, jade green water. On the bottom were sea cucumbers, rock scallops, some beautiful seaweeds. Everybody started to go very slow. We had been paddling hard, but everybody slowed down and just started looking. After about fifteen minutes of quiet, we picked up our paddles and started paddling again. There was so much power in that silence, that the next day we did the whole day without talking. In silence there is a lot more access, I think, to the spirit, to spirituality, to the soul. 
- Jennifer Hahn, kayak guide, from a Heron Dance interview that appeared in the first issue.

In silence we must wrap much of our life, because it is too fine for speech, because also we cannot explain it to others, and because some of it we cannot yet understand.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

. . .

There eventually comes a time on all wilderness trips, particularly solo trips, when the mind relaxes. The need for words recedes as internal peace takes over.