Whosoever is Delighted in Solitude is Either a Wild Beast or a God

Somewhere out in the Pacific

Whenever I wake up in an unknown land, I always think of the nineteenth-century explorer Freya Stark. In her travel writings, she describes the act of travelling alone as a deeply religious experience. 

To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world. You are surrounded by adventure. You have no idea what is in store for you, but you will, if you are wise and know the art of travel, let yourself go on the stream of the unknown and accept whatever comes in the spirit in which the gods may offer it. 

And as dawn rose over New Caledonia this morning, I felt just that. A religiosity. An aliveness. And a complete handing over of any agenda or plan. What a relief!

I leaned back into that great unknown, to reacquaint myself with what Henry Corbin calls “that which is best and oldest in yourself.”

This is the heart of the Sufism of Ibn ‘Arabi which Corbin refers to as being Alone with the Alone.

In his Letters to a Young Poet, Rilke wrote,

What is necessary, after all, is only this: solitude, vast inner solitude. To walk inside yourself and meet no one for hours — that is what you must be able to attain.

The view from my window is blue. Curled by the wind in bursts of white foam pushed across the surface and accompanied by the whale-like shadows of clouds.