I know that the only perfect happiness I have ever experienced has been in nature when in the stillness of an instant I, in perceiving that instant, am the miracle; all the failed moments—on the mountain, on my knees with a rosary, in cathedrals, alone in rooms— were the frustration of the movement of an instinctive direction towards silence.
— Todd Goddard, Devouring Time, quoting Deborah Matthiessen from her book, Annaghkeen