In The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, one of the main characters is an alien named Ford Prefect from a planet near Betelgeuse. Although he looks, talks, and acts more or less human, there are many things about earthlings that puzzle him, such as the fact that they seem to talk all the time—even if only to repeat the obvious. Over the course of several months, he comes up with a number of theories for this behavior, one of which I found particularly insightful: “If human beings don’t keep exercising their lips, he thought, their brains start working” (p. 49). I’ve frequently noticed, on the one hand, that many people like to surround themselves with sound all the time (making their own if all else fails); and on the other hand, that contemplation is a foreign and uncomfortable concept to most of us. An increasingly popular way of overcoming the sound habit, at least briefly, is to go on a silent retreat.

All Action and No Talk
The idea of a silent retreat is simple: you go somewhere relatively quiet and don’t talk—for a day, a few days, or even longer. Silent retreats usually involve a group of people, so the significant part is not so much that you yourself aren’t speaking but that others aren’t speaking to you. In addition, most other artificial sounds—radio, TV, music, and so on—are avoided, so that for the most part, participants don’t hear any words for long periods of time.

What exactly is the point of going without words for a few days? You get to hear yourself think. Other people use different language to describe this: meditation, listening to your inner or higher self, hearing the voice of God, and so on. However you wish to think about it, you are avoiding the influences of other voices in order to focus your attention inward. Just as you might step away from a crowd to have a private conversation, a silent retreat provides an extended period of time during which your thoughts can be strictly your own. Silent retreats recall the monastic tradition of vows of silence, which are still practiced today in many contemplative orders. In that context, a period of avoiding speech—which for some monks can last months, years, or even a lifetime—is a sign of humility as well as being an aid to prayer and meditation. Some people participate in silent retreats as a religious exercise or because they have a specific problem to solve or decision to make; for others, it’s more of a relaxing vacation, with no real goal attached. But it’s not uncommon for people to begin a retreat without any particular expectations and later find they’ve had a profoundly moving experience.

Sound Decisions
There are no fixed rules for the way a silent retreat should be structured. Often a group will schedule one or two daily sessions during a retreat with a lecture, group prayer, discussion, or some other ritual, temporarily interrupting the silence to give participants some context or direction for their contemplation. It is also not uncommon to have individual coaches, counselors, or spiritual directors meet with participants occasionally to provide feedback or make suggestions as to where attention might be focused. Even without words, though, silent retreats can have an agenda or theme. In addition to Buddhist meditation and retreats organized by various churches, I’ve seen advertisements for silent yoga and t’ai chi retreats, for example. Retreat centers sometimes offer do-it-yourself personal retreats as well, with or without the services of a counselor.

If you look at the comments made by ordinary people who have been on silent retreats, it’s striking how often they say it was a mind-blowing or life-changing event. That the simple act of going without words can affect someone so profoundly shows how unusual silence has become in ordinary life. Even for those who make an effort to avoid extraneous noise, a silent retreat can provide a more thorough and prolonged period of silence. I participated in a silent retreat myself last spring, and found it very effective in helping me to clear my mind, organize my thoughts, and make sane decisions. I look forward to my next opportunity for an extended time of silence, and heartily recommend the experience to anyone who likes to think. —Joe Kissell

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More Information about Silent Retreats...

If you’re interested in participating in a silent retreat, you might check with a local church, monastery, or meditation center to see if they organize such events. Alternatively, organize your own or go to a rural retreat center (such as Sacred Mountain Ranch) that’s set up for individual participants.

An interesting article by Katherine Jacob describes her experience at the Loyola House retreat center in Ontario.

A silent retreat is a wonderful opportunity to read (or re-read) The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. In The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (the first of four sequels), Adams reviews Ford’s theory that humans must talk to keep from thinking (p. 162), pointing out that the formerly quiet and peaceful Belceberon people of Kakrafoon were cursed with telepathy, and only constant conversation (or a very loud rock concert) could prevent their every thought from being heard by anyone nearby. The other books in the series are Life, the Universe, and Everything, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, and Mostly Harmless.

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by Morgen Jahnke

Picture of a part of the world covered with enormous sand dunes. You may be thinking of a desert in Africa, Asia, or the southwestern United States. But there’s another place, above the 49th parallel, where you can find such sand dunes—Saskatchewan, Canada. Many of my compatriots from other parts of Canada love to make fun of how topographically dull Saskatchewan is; they say it’s an endless expanse of flatness, with no trees or hills. But this western Canadian province is full of surprises. Although the southern half of the province—where you’ll find major cities such as Regina and Saskatoon—is mostly prairie grasslands, the northern half is a wild expanse of rivers, lakes, and coniferous forests. It even has a salt lake with a mineral density greater than that of the Dead Sea, Lake Manitou (Cree for “Lake of Good Spirit”). And furthermore, Cypress Hills, in the southeastern corner of the province, is the highest point in Canada between Labrador and the Rockies. Besides, you can’t claim that a piece of land twice the size of Italy and almost as big as Texas could have so little range (pardon the pun). Is my defensiveness showing? And did I mention the glorious sunsets?

The sand dunes I mentioned earlier are associated with a body of water—Lake Athabasca, the province’s largest lake. Located in the far northwest of Saskatchewan, almost at the border with the Northwest Territories, Lake Athabasca is accessible only by floatplane, there being no roads that go that far north. On the south side of the lake, there is a natural geological formation that is unique and surprising to find at this northern latitude—the Athabasca Sand Dunes. In places 30 meters (98 feet) high, and stretching 100 km (62 miles) along the shore of Lake Athabasca, the Athabasca Sand Dunes are the world’s largest area of active sand dunes north of 58 degrees latitude.

Don’t Desert Me
Although we often associate sand dunes with deserts, in the case of the Athabasca Sand Dunes, this doesn’t hold true. For one thing, deserts are identified by their lack of water, and not only do these dunes border 7,850 square kilometers (3,030 square miles) of water, they also contain significant patches of water in places, percolating up from the shallow water table below. Another feature of deserts—limited plant and animal life—does not hold true for these sand dunes either. In fact, of the 300 plant species that grow in the dunes, there are 10 species that are endemic (found nowhere else in the world), and another 42 species that are considered rare in the province. Not that the dunes are entirely welcoming to the local flora. Because the dunes are active, shifted by wind and eroded by water, they are constantly on the move. Visitors to the region tell of seeing entire stands of skeletal trees emerging from the sand—once above ground and flourishing, these trees were slowly buried by the shifting sand, and now are revealed by further dune movements.

Icing on the Lake
So, if these sand dunes are not a desert ecosystem, created by extreme drought and aridity, how were they formed? The short answer is: the glaciers did it. The sand dunes are the product of the Athabasca sandstone formation, originally a delta in a freshwater lake created out of materials eroded from ancient mountain ranges by glaciers and rivers one billion years ago. These materials were eventually compressed into sandstone, and later still, eroded by wind, water, and glaciers to create the sand dunes that exist today. Of course, I find the native Dene legend about the dunes’ creation more interesting—that a giant man speared a giant beaver, which thrashed and ground the earth with its tail, making soil into sand.

Sand by Me
Although I’ve never been to the Athabasca Sand Dunes, I do hope to see them one day. Until I do, it makes me happy just to know that they are there, a concrete affront to all those who say that Saskatchewan is nothing more than a boring strip of land between the Alberta and Manitoba borders. And did I mention the sunsets? —Morgen Jahnke

Morgen Jahnke is a native of Saskatchewan, Canada, now living in Paris.

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