What Silence Looks Like

Philip Andelman on his trips to Namibia… The Seven Sisters shined brighter than I’d ever seen them, Orion’s belt was diorentingly-skewed, but what struck me most was the depth of the universe in its utter darkness. I felt like I was seeing past everything I’d ever seen, and as if in the midst of a tech-filled pitch for a new TV, I was seeing levels of black so much richer and darker than ever before— Anish Kapoor by way of Neil deGrasse Tyson. …and Canyonlands National Park: The ensuing night sky was disappointing after the one I’d recently witnessed in Namibia – in the corner of my eye I could make out some of Moab’s light pollution and the stars themselves felt fainter, dustier. But what I will never forget was the silence: as great and powerful as Namibia’s endless starscape, the quiet I experienced at dusk here in Canyonlands was unlike any other. At a certain moment a bird flew about twenty feet over my head, and in the supreme stillness I could hear its wings pushing the air…