Solitude revisited

…Silence carries with it certain understandings. We know that when a hush falls over the land, we begin a ritual that prepares us to enter the world of solitude…As you begin to relax and forget about the numbing influences of society, you become part of the natural world, and slowly allow yourself to be shaped according to Nature’s ways. This is when your mind and thoughts start to drift freely like gossamer on the wind, unencombered and following a course not to be plotted by human logic…In the stillness, emotions surface. Your self-awareness is heightened…the silent land becomes your mirror where you meet yourself face to face…When it comes to choosing life’s paths, the heart knows the way, but it whispers and can be heard only in the stillness of the wilds.

Tom Shealy

I was at the nature preserve yesterday afternoon, and while I cannot say it is true wilderness, it is as near as we come to that here in the sprawling Charleston metropolitan area. When I decide to take the 17-mile trip out there, I make a decision to brave the incessant noise and trafffic of one of the busiest sections of the city — long waits at traffic lights, emboldened and foolish drivers, and the general confusion and craziness of urbanity — and drive out past all that to a place I know my roiling tensions and anxeities will be calmed. Even on days when I am relatively at peace, there is still every reason to go there, when I can.

Saturday, the cotton ball clouds and blue paths of sky wandering in and among them were the focus of my gaze. Up to the sky and all around. Looking, wondering, marveling. My gaze would descend down to earth to see a great blue heron circliing over a favorite patch of marsh and mudflats. Geese and ducks would take my gaze skyward again, and I’d follow their graceful movements in flight. Small birds would flit from one bare tree to another.

The trail took me on a long circular route around the marshes and waterfowl resting area, on a dike that faces swampy woods on the other side. It is a world of many contrasts.

Clouds reflected in still water is always a sight of mesmerizing beauty. I can stare at those reflections, and after awhile the earth and sky seem to merge into one. Then, the wind will pick up and rustle the surface of the water, dispersing the reflections and creating another, wholly different environment and landscape. Wind and water make the land come alive.

I deliberately seek solitude here. I do not wish to say another word to anyone. I choose to be silent because the world around me is mostly silent, except for the call of birds and the wind in the trees.

After an afternoon spent in this world of natural beauty and stillness, it is with great reluctance that I head for the trail through the woods, past the swamp chestnut tree and tall pines, to the parking lot. Winding down a dirt road to the main highway, the sense of peace and solitude has been so profound, and has produced such a deep calm, that the streaming traffic that greets me is a shock. It always is.

I head back to the world I left hours before and which I scarcely thought about for that all-too-brief time away from it.

I wrote this exactly a year ago about a long walk in this preserve:

Sanctuary