Timothy Stoner

Orcas Watch: A healing silence

Posted on 03. Sep, 2010 by Tim Stoner in Blog, Life, places to stay

Ask a doctor to cure what ails you and he or she will prescribe some pills but ask a good Danish philosopher and he will recommend something entirely different. Kierkegaard, in the nineteenth century, wrote: “If I were a physician, and if I were allowed to prescribe just one remedy for all the ills of the modern world, I would prescribe silence. For even if the Word of God were proclaimed in the modern world, how could one hear it with so much noise? Therefore, create silence.”

The absence of noise is what my wife and I first noticed as we set our bags down inside wood-paneled Orcas Watch, a unique, nautically-themed cottage on the northern tip of Orcas Island on the Puget Sound. There is something remarkably healing about the peaceful sounds of seamless quiet. It seemed to penetrate almost immediately.

North Shores Cottages has six lovely, whimsical and comfortable cottages nestled privately among large trees. On one of our walks Patty and I picked up a yellow leaf from a giant maple, it was the size of two footballs. Each cottage has its whimsy, ours was fashioned to look the inside of a sailing ship—genuine brass portholes all around. Leather, wood and brass, and lots of books.

My kind of a place.

There also was a huge flat screen TV, but—why bother? The point is to get as far away from what it is being brazenly and insistently foisted on you by the loud, clever, gaudy marketers and profiteers of our consumer culture. The prescription calls for unplugging, disentangling and letting the quiet seep into the bruised and badgered bones. The private hot tub was a delightful aid.

The first day we were there we did take note of an unusual sound that owner and innkeeper, Elizabeth Sweet, had alerted us to. It was the high, keening squeal of a bird of prey. We had never heard anything like it. We hurried toward it as cautiously yet as hurriedly as we could. It was coming from one of the top-most branches of a towering pine overlooking the ocean. Patty found it almost immediately. It takes me a longer while but eventually I manage to make out the crooked white plumed head of a bald eagle staring down at me with gimlet eyes.

Eagle sightings are common-place at North Shore cottages, Elizabeth and her husband Leonard assure us. There are several pair that have staked out their property as private hunting grounds. They have their favorite perches as they grandly survey the rocky ocean front beneath them. Occasionally they do battle with marauding ospreys. But this we were unfortunately not privileged to watch.

Orcas Island is located between the Washington mainland (two hours north of Seattle, and almost an hour by ferry) and Vancouver Island. It is regarded as the most beautiful of the San Juan Islands of which there are approximately 700. It is shaped like two saddle bags or an inverted horse shoe. Each side is about 10 miles long and the eastern “lobe” (as I referred to it since it put me in mind of two monster ears on a smallish head) boasts the 52,000-acre Moran State Park with 38 miles of hiking trails.

At the northern edge of the park is Mt. Constitution which has a 2400-foot summit. From the top of the stone-tower at its peak we were greeted with one of the ten-most beautiful vistas in North America. The stunning view includes snow covered Mount Baker and Mount Rainier in the distance, and the San Juan and Canadian islands, including Vancouver in the bluish mist across the Sound.

Having run into an enthusiastic couple from Chicago who’d gone whale watching we took a charter boat to get glimpse of the famous orcas. The excitable Midwesterners failed to mention the strictly-enforced 100 yard-rule. Boats must stay behind that invisible protective line when going whale-spotting. The Chicagoans had been lucky. Two orcas had taken the captain by surprise and sidled up to the sides of the boat. We were less fortunate. While it was nice to see the small pods sporting about in the water, 100-yards, for eyes such as ours that are no longer sprightly, they were a ‘fur piece’ away. Binoculars help, but—well, not really all that much.

However, and this will lay bare my priorities, the lack was made up by lunch at Olga’s Café. While this may seem to be elevating food to an unseemly level, one should not impugn until after having sampled the fare. I spent five years in Spain and I never had a better, fresher, more delicious gazpacho–ever. While the crab cakes and salad were exceptional, what eclipsed them all was the blackberry pie which stands at the summit of all berry pies eaten in my lifetime. Patty tried the key lime pie and I was pierced instantly with a treasonous thought. It erupted unbidden, in a spontaneous, disloyal rush: “This is not as good as mom’s, it is actually better!” I almost blushed to make the admission to our host.

We were five days on the island and were treated to a family of sea otters, more eagle sightings and a star-fish strewn beach. I did not know they came in assorted colors: purple, blue and pink. They were stunning. But it was a little sad to see them strewn on the rocks and sand, left stranded by tide’s swift retreat. Each day was an elixir of respite and rest and, yes, an almost liquous quiet. No engines, no commercials, no preaching, not even the thunder of waves. Just what Dr. Kierkegaard ordered—long, luscious draughts of unbroken silence, as one gazed at ocean and distant islands and mountain ranges in the purplish haze.

Another good physician, Dr. Peter Kreeft, wrote about this in a blog I stumbled upon when I returned home and climbed back on the web. “Silence is necessary; it is not a luxury,” he wrote. “Only words that come from silence carry power; words that come from noise, or only from other words, are shallow. Words from silence are like waves from the ocean . . . .”

The title of his blog is “How the Sea Can Help You Pray.” While on the island I didn’t use words you could hear, but in the silence of Orcas Watch I was enabled to pray, and what is more, listen.

Thanks Leonard and Elizabeth.

Tags: healing, Kierkegaard, Leonard Sweet, Orcas Island, prayer, Puget Sound, quiet, silence