live cantata of silence

There is a very clear echo in the valley. During the day, while I was writing out on the terrace, I heard voices calling R O C A MAD OOOUURRRR. On the last midnight, after the bells had sounded, I walked out to the end of the valley. I called aloud, one by one the names of the children. Mick, Ralph, Martha, Magnus, Sophie, Jacob and Joseph. The sounds flew round the valley, several seconds of clear, uncanny call. The best two, the sounds going on and on, were Jacob and Joseph ... It felt as if those names sped into the midnight rocks, and would remain there, in some way, to guide the named. Rocamadour remains for me, above all else, this spirit of the place; something complete and tangible by the sheer force of its intangibility. Within that simple, listening experience, there seemed to be all I sought and all I would ever find. A continuous, live cantata of silence; the hinge and sum and fulcrum of the rest.


from Jennifer Lash: On Pilgrimage via NOJ