Solitude enables us to disentangle our identity from the opinions of society and to commune instead with the forces of the Universe welling up from within our inner core.

Solitude enables us to detach ourselves from the fickle attitude that society holds toward us and our calling and allows us instead to commune with the forces of the Universe that speak to us within our inner core.  As a monastic friend once told Nature writer Ellen Meloy, "To feel that we belong to the world, we must be DESERTED."  Only when we stop building our identity around what society thinks of us will we settle into a profound communion with the One who never fails to meet us in solitude.

Photo: Snag on Lake Zimmerman, near Cameron Pass, CO; February 13, 2013