Sojourn in Solitude

Such an incredible gift! To be able to take a year off the fast track—to be able to do one's own work, to be able to be absorbed in one's own world, to know the simplest self without others' projections, without having to dance to another's expectations, without having to meet another's deadlines. I was able to rekindle my life's light “to keep enthusiasm from extinction.” I'm sure my greatest fear is to lose my enthusiasm for life.

I have always felt that life was made for experiencing, both mentally and emotionally. Our intellect learns from others or books. Our emotions learn from feeling, from the subtle antennae that spread and connect and receive many silent sources. I remember once a friend was horrified when I told her that, for me, the Creator is like an octopus and we are like the suction-cups on the tenacles—we are sucking up experiences in the manifestation for the unmanifest. I'm the Creator's experiencer in body and mind. This concept has given me tremendous courage to face life. The Creator wasn't going to miss anything; I was not going to miss anything. I have stretched myself beyond my wildest dreams by living in Spain a year, by traveling in India for over five years, and by publishing Houston's alternative health newspaper. But my life has not always been crammed with activity, I have been able to take time to read and think and enjoy wherever I was and whatever I was doing (well, almost).

This opportunity to spend a year in the abundant nature of the Sam Houston National Forest in east Texas was a gift from my brother. Most of the area had been logged and ranched at one time, but undaunted Nature had spread its green tenacles to capture the damaged landscape and turn it into a home for a myriad of plants and animals. The natural world is our human cradle; we couldn't exist without it. Sometimes I would lie back on the grass and try to imagine what this world was like hundreds of years ago, before "white man" arrived. Natural life was abundant and safe and secure. I imagine sky full of the millions of passenger pigeons and buffalo roaming the hillsides and wolves howling to their heart's content. If humans would suddenly disappear off the planet, I don't think they would miss us.