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.
Loneliness is the feeling we have when we refuse to journey... Turning to invite the quiet transforms the feeling by changing the faces and quality of our attention. We are secure enough to let go, and to embrace solitude where we hear our own voice, even in the silence. We are wholeheartedly in the company of our deepest thoughts and feelings, independent of human presence or our physical surroundings.
~ from THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE HEART by Charlene Sexton
