Silence is a great friend of the soul; it unveils the riches of solitude. If you have a trust in and an expectation of your own solitude, everything that you need to know will be revealed to you.
John O'Donohue
Someone once wrote a book on meditation called Wherever You Go, There You Are. This is such a worthy book title, as nothing could be more accurately said about each of our experiences in life, no matter where we find ourselves.
I have now had the experiences of several solo trips to Costa Rica, I have traveled in China and Hong Kong for a month alone, journeyed three times to Japan, culminating in living in solitude for one year in Kyoto. I have ventured to S. Korea alone and lived on a mountain among the indigenous in Panama. I am now entering a new season of solitude in Costa Rica.
One thing is absolutely certain….one is always with themselves wherever they go. Even the busiest person with the most overloaded schedule must come to terms with their sense of aloneness behind all of the activity.
There seems to come a point in every journey when all of the newness of a place starts to wear off, the little things that were so exciting during the first few days and weeks begin to become familiar. Things that were mild sacrifices in ways of doing things begin to get a little bit annoying. Solitude can easily slip into loneliness if one hasn’t really learned the art of being with oneself wherever one goes.
As John O’Donohue wrote…Solitude is one of the most precious things in the human spirit. It is different from loneliness. When you are lonely, you become acutely conscious of your own separation. Solitude can be a homecoming to your own deepest belonging.
One of the lovely things about us as individuals is the incommensurable in us. In each person, there is a point of absolute nonconnection with everything else and with everyone. This is fascinating and frightening. It means that we cannot continue to seek outside ourselves for the things we need from within. The blessings for which we hunger are not to be found in other places or people. These gifts can only be given to you by yourself. They are at home at the hearth of your soul.
As I look back over my many past journeys, I have traveled so far in my peace and contentment and even enjoyment of my own company. The truth is, and this has come as a valuable awareness to me, is that each one of us, wherever we are, whether surrounded by people and family with a busy life or a quiet life, are predominantly having a relationship unto ourselves in the world.
Many of us respond to our inability to do this by surrounding ourselves with casual friends and constant activity because we do not know how to be in a healthy relationship with ourselves. At the other extreme, complete isolation, such as one can experience for six months alone on top of a mountain, can reveal to us just where there is still progress to be made in the art of being with oneself.
I have overcome milestones from the person I was a decade ago, one who needed to be constantly surrounded by friends and activities for a sense of myself in the world. Although I now largely enjoy a life of quietude and very long stretches of time alone, I am still not at that place of the true artist who can go for unlimited days on end immersed in some creative work while losing all contact with others and the outside world. I am probably much closer to this now than ever, but at my core I am still wired for connection with others. So a volunteer at a neighbor’s nursery, I reach out to the neighbors I meet along the way, I make friends with the workers at the soda cafe in town.
I have been reading about Carl Jung, whom I have followed and admired for many years.
He built a simple stone house by hand along the shore of Lake Zurich. Over 12 years he developed it, yet it remained a primitive dwelling with no heat or electricity, no telephone. He would chop wood, cook on a stove with oil. He had to walk to get water from the lake to boil it. This was his retreat from the city and he would spend months alone here, meditating, writing, painting, walking. He would wake at 7am, spend quite a long time in his ritual of making breakfast…coffee, salami, fruits and butter. He would then set aside two hours in the morning for writing. The rest of the day would be spent meditating, painting and walking.
He would enjoy an afternoon tea and then make a large dinner in the evening. Once in awhile he would see friends. -Daily Rituals, How Artists Work
Here was one of the most significant contributors to our understanding of spirituality and psychology. This is how he spent his days. I am very close. This is largely how I am living. It seems to release the flow of creativity. In every situation I have lived in, dating back to my first encounter with Costa Rica some 10 years ago, I have been seeking to cultivate a life around these elements and a simple way of living in the world that effortlessly emerged the first time I visited Costa Rica.
Simplicity is at the very heart of it, living in accordance with nature and in such away that is richly simple. As one begins to discover, an almost natural symphony begins to emerge of itself, expressing ever so naturally as one is largely removed from the infrastructure and constant assault on the senses one experiences daily in modern culture.
It is understandable why so many simply cannot live this way. And yet, again and again, I constantly observe as travelers pass through Costa Rica, most of whom have jobs and salaries in the modern world, those who admire and dream of living in a place such as this, they arrive in “the dream” and are quickly bored and eager to return back to the world of numbing distractions and familiarity.
Somehow, in each environment I have found myself in, this underlying thread within me has deepened and continued. It first began here in Costa Rica and seems to have returned me here where my first journey inspired me ten years. I am largely living within the expression of this ideal vision I had for myself, that vision which was born so many years ago.
As John O’Donohue concluded….Only in solitude can you discover a sense of your own beauty. The Divine Artist sent no one here without the depth and light of divine beauty. This beauty is frequently concealed behind the dull facade of routine.
Only in your solitude will you come upon your own beauty. In the neglected crevices and corners of your evaded solitude, you will find the treasure that you have always sought elsewhere.
View from the Road
Walking Meditation
A recent article in the New Yorker entitled “Why Walking Helps Us Think” provided the inspiration that “since the time of the peripatetic Greek philosophers, many other writers have discovered a deep, intuitive connection between walking, thinking, and writing.”
I experienced this firsthand while living in Kyoto, Japan. Since I had no car, I discovered walking as a mindfulness ritual that offered a meditative connection to accessing my own inspiration. That year I walked 600 miles around the streets of Kyoto. Here in Central America, I am averaging just over 500 miles on foot for the year.
Walking is an essential ritual I discovered as a form of a daily meditation practice. It became as routine as eating or brushing my teeth.
It was during my long afternoon walks among the Japanese Maple trees, Zen gardens, and narrow streets that poems would effortlessly come forth. During my many strolls along the Kamogawa River, inspired ideas would come from the higher realms. Often, I would have to stop somewhere so that I could sit on a bench and write in my notebook everything that was coming through me.
During the pandemic in the U.S., I walked more miles than I did in Kyoto. Those three miles per day saved me.
There is no coincidence that many great thinkers and writers throughout the ages have made long walks part of their daily routines. In one of my all-time favorite books, Daily Rituals, great thinkers and creators like Albert Einstein, Henry David Thoreau, and Carl Jung all prioritized the daily walk as a practice to generate their most inspired ideas.
Every day in Costa Rica, I walk. I walk for three miles up a mountain just to get a Gatorade at the tiny market and stop at the waterfall. I walk to town for my groceries. I walk to catch the bus. I walk again for miles when I get off the bus.
Walking has become a form of daily meditation that has saved my life. I highly recommend you give daily walking a try.
But by all means, make sure to get some good shoes.
Field Notes
True action, good and radiant action, my friends, does not spring from activity, from busy bustling, it does not spring from industrious hammering. It grows in the solitude of the mountains, it grows on the summits where silence and danger dwell. It grows out of the suffering which you have not yet learned to suffer.
Solitude is the path over which destiny endeavors to lead man to himself. Solitude is the path that men most fear. A path fraught with terrors, where snakes and toads lie in wait… Without solitude there is no suffering, without solitude there is no heroism.
Most men, the herd, have never tasted solitude. They leave father and mother, but only to crawl to a wife and quietly succumb to new warmth and new ties. They are never alone, they never commune with themselves. And when a solitary man crosses their path, they fear him and hate him like the plague; they fling stones at him and find no peace until they are far away from him. The air around him smells of stars, of cold stellar spaces; he lacks the soft warm fragrance of the home and hatchery.
A man must be indifferent to the possibility of falling, if he wants to taste of solitude and to face up to his own destiny. It is easier and sweeter to walk with a people, with a multitude — even through misery. It is easier and more comforting to devote oneself to the “tasks” of the day, the tasks meted out by the collectivity.
Blessed be he who has found his solitude, not the solitude pictured in painting or poetry, but his own, unique, predestined solitude. Blessed be he who knows how to suffer! Blessed be he who bears the magic stone in his heart. To him comes destiny, from him comes authentic action.
You were made to be yourselves. You were made to enrich the world with a sound, a tone, a shadow.
In each one of you there is a hidden being, still in the deep sleep of childhood. Bring it to life! In each one of you there is a call, a will, an impulse of nature, an impulse toward the future, the new, the higher. Let it mature, let it resound, nurture it! Your future is not this or that; it is not money or power, it is not wisdom or success at your trade — your future, your hard dangerous path is this: to mature and to find God in yourselves.
-Herman Hesse
From the Archives
Please enjoy Walking with James Allen from the archives.
Become a Founding Member or Paid Subscriber and access all articles from the past five years.
Subscribe. Donate. Share the Journey
Zen and Ink Journals is a simple offering of words in the hope of inspiring others to a simpler, more mindful way of life in these chaotic times. I invite you along each month on the journey for a glimpse of the larger world, reflections on living more simply and quietly amidst the chaos of our modern world.
If your journey has been enriched by these writings and you have been considering a subscription or donation, now is the perfect time to do so. For the cost of a cup of coffee and a pastry each month you can become a monthly subscriber. If you would like to support Zen and Ink as a Founding Member or prefer a one-time Donation you may select the Founding Member option and enter any amount you choose.
As a subscriber, you receive full access to the archive of over a hundred articles covering five years of travels representing hundreds of hours of writing. In the future you also will receive invitations to courses, events and subscriber only offerings.
Please know your gift carries a ripple effect in the world and helps sustain the journey. Zen and Ink Journals continues to go out free each month thanks to those who have already generously subscribed and continue their support to make this possible.
I always enjoy hearing from you. Please reach out with your thoughts and feedback to zenandinkinfo@gmail.com
Thank you for reading Zen and Ink Journals and coming along on the journey.
Kirk