With the help of Thomas Merton, my guide to meditation and the glory of solitude, I spoke in the above voice recording about my urgent need for a Peaceful Hour, a time of quiet and reflection, a time away from the outside world and its’ messages and conflicts. I feel sometimes that I am flying through a cloud of anger and division, everyone speaking but no one listening any longer, a kind of Orwellian reality that it is becoming increasingly difficult to escape.

But not impossible. Every day, I am building a Peaceful Hour for myself, Disconnected from the outside world and its idea of news and politics. Maybe out in the woods with dogs, sitting by the stream we have found in our woods, reading, meditating. Being with myself. I think in our world every idea struggles to live and not be sucked into the whirlpool of anger and argument that is sometimes gobbling up the rational universe.

So this is the first of my voice meditations about it, I will share my experience with the Peaceful Hour. Merton teaches us that if we cannot be alone, we cannot know ourselves or love ourselves or anyone else.