Solitude

Cleggan, County Mayo ©A. Rutherford

Read an interesting thing today—the word alone is derived from the Middle English phrase for "all one."   So when you are alone, you are all one . . . you are with yourself.   The point would be to be able to be in harmony with yourself . . . to be balanced in such a way that being alone (all one) would not produce anxiety or angst in you, as solitude so often does in people, but rather would produce a creative tension which was both useful and meaningful.

Then the question arises, why is it that people go to such great lengths in this modern world to avoid being alone with themselves and their thoughts and their gifts in their place in the world. 

A facet of the path of pilgrimage which might be the hardest is that it will necessarily require a lot of solitude.   However, finding the comfort and the richness that solitude offers is one of the goals that I'm after.

I've been reading the books of a favorite Irish writer John O’Donohue again to see what he has to say about solitude and finding it very helpful, almost like a roadmap for such a pilgrimage.   O'Donohue is reminding me of what a gift solitude has been for me in the past.

Over the past week or so I have been reading aloud again to myself, something that I used to do quite often . . .

Why do I read to myself?     'cause right now there's no one else to do it  . . . LOL

Seriously, I’ve also been doing a lot of research which I hope to share on the history of reading, when oral reading stopped and silent reading began, and I’m finding it very interesting.

As for me, reading aloud to myself strengthens my resolve to get past the struggle to enter my interior space.  Reading aloud is kind of like making a promise or a commitment to myself not to give up too soon.   I have found that it helps me to resist the temptation to take the easy path and not do the work of concentration on the text, to not delve deeply enough into what I am reading to reach the kind of understanding which can cause growth to happen.   Also reading aloud, especially poetry, increases the pleasure of the experience,  giving you a rich enjoyment of the music of the passage as well as the content.

O'Donohue has written in Anam Cara,

. . . there is a place in the soul that neither space nor time nor flesh can touch. This is the eternal place with us. It would be a lovely gift to yourself to go there often— to be nourished, strengthened, and renewed. The deepest things you need are not elsewhere. They are here and now in that circle of your own soul. Real friendship and holiness enables a person to frequently visit the hearth of [his or her] solitude.

So please allow me to read a bit from Anam Cara for you, accompanied by some of my photography in Ireland.
I would be interested in your thoughts on Solitude or on the experience of reading aloud.