A Quiet Rhythm
By Brother Vladimir Note: this is a description of my experiences in the first month of moving back to the Northeast to be closer to New Skete. The transition from the frenetic noise of Silicon Valley to the stillness of rural upstate New York was startling. During this writing, I lived in a log cabin in Salem, New York, and drove to New Skete for daily morning and evening services. The rhythms of life are more tangible when a person lives in the country. Surrounded by rolling hills, expanses of forests, and mountains, the imagination gradually becomes purified of the dross; stripped of the heavy images that have been deposited there, often without our knowledge. The inner life gradually becomes clarified like fresh spring water. Sensory impressions are a subtle food for the soul no less than the physical food we ingest and the invisible air we breathe. So often we fail to regulate what we absorb, and the quality of our impressions is too coarse, too heavy, unrefine