On Solitude and Intimacy with Feeling, Part I

December 9. Day 29, Mountainair, NM. Having spent the past days with a dear friend, I turn now to wander the desert solo. It is the season of waning light in the Northern Hemisphere, which will meet its still point in a few short weeks. Faint is the promise that light will come again, and so, too, the waxing rhythms of life.

I enter a study of solitude, which is at once inward and in the world as I make my way across a landscape I do not know. My timing is compelled by the forthcoming solstice. I seek to inquire into habits of thought, shifting moods, and what inner impulses stir that might go unrecognized in the busyness of life and the company of others. I seek to pause, as it were, and meet the one within quietly whispering behind the noise of thinking and talking.

My sense is that an inner silence must surely linger in awareness, if not establish a foothold when a devoted presence is given. This is a life-giving silence, bringing freshness to impressions and perceptions. Stephen Ba…