Our image of solitude is often negative: withdrawal, isolation, distance from others. But this misrepresents the hermitage which is like a silent,invisible spiritual concourse; a place where many can converge without sinking into a crowd, and become a community of love. Every human heart is a hermitage, if we care to enter and find ourselves there in union with all. In solitude friend, foe, and stranger are equally known in love.
feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell. As you ring,
what batters you becomes your strength.
Move back and forth into the change...
In this uncontainable night,
be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,
the meaning discovered there.
And if the world has ceased to hear you,
say to the silent Earth: I flow.
To the rushing water, speak: I am.