Solitude

Photography: Dewitt Jones

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Without solitude, Love will not stay long by your side.

Because Love needs to rest, so that it can journey through the heavens and reveal itself in other forms.

Without solitude, no plant or animal can survive, no soil can remain productive, no child can learn about life, no artist can create, no work can grow and be transformed.

Solitude is not the absence of Love, but its complement.

Solitude is not the absence of company, but the moment when our soul is free to speak to us and help us decide what to do with our life.

Therefore, blessed are those who do not fear solitude, who are not afraid of their own company, who are not always desperately looking for something to do, something to amuse themselves with, something to judge.

If you are never alone, you cannot know yourself.

And if you do not know yourself, you will begin to fear the void.

~Paulo Coelho, Manuscript Found in Accra

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As each precious day unfolds itself filled with first light, and birdsong envelops the ever lightening sky, there is rejoicing. As elders we become acutely aware that we only have so much embodied time left here.

Solitude that was so rare as we raced through our younger years was most often to be avoided at all costs. If we only knew that it was the solitude that would bring us a greater awareness of who we are in our wholeness perhaps we would have welcomed it with open arms.

Leapt at opportunities to bare our heart and soul to ourselves in quiet reflection.

Now as we stand on the threshold of leaving, solitude brings gifts if we would release the need to be seen and amused. To be busy and acknowledged. Just for moments in time.

For it is those moments standing alone in the midst of a temperate rain forest with the color of green permeating so deeply into our cells that we feel as if we have become one with the wildness. In tune with the vibration of nature. Of ourselves.

Or sitting on the shore where the ocean stretches out before us moving towards and away in a lullaby of water that embraces us with longing to love now and forever the one single moment that brings joy woven with awe.

To know ourselves whole and free. To cross over the threshold into the void without fear.

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You can find ALL of the 2022 31-Days Elder Muse posts in the archives here: https://wildlyfreeelder.com/2022/12/

Gaye Abbott, Wildly Free Elder, 06/8/23