What does it mean to remain faithful to our shyness? When feeling at home in ourselves is different from feeling at home in the world.
solitude
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From a young age, writer Anya Jaremko-Greenwold imagined herself inside paintings: “It didn’t so much matter whether the artist had invited any visitors — if no human figures stalked the work, so much the better. I’d have the place to myself.” On art appreciation as a worldview and an inheritance — in all of its beauty and consequence.
The dread that comes with charting unknown territory is also an opportunity to embrace new forms of self knowledge — to experience what Wendell Berry calls “our essential loneliness.”
If you want to lead others, learn to be alone with your thoughts. A penetrating contemplation of what great leadership requires: a steady independence of mind that only comes with solitude.
A poem from David Whyte on escaping the noise of the world, and listening instead to “questions that can make or unmake a life.”
The value of solitude isn't simply in retreating from a chaotic world. It's a discipline that's different for all of us — and one that we can practice wherever we are.
Our columnist gets honest about missing true solitude as a mother of young girls, and reflects on how crucial it is for women to carve out space to nurture no one but themselves.
We can communicate with almost anybody at any moment and all the time. But are we losing our capacity to be alone, and therefore our ability to think anew? Rediscovering this ability just may be pivotal to the health of democracy.
Animated by solitude in the winter woods, Parker J. Palmer on seeing the hidden and potential beauty beneath what's superficial in the world we face.
As we turn the seasonal corner to the longest nights of the year, a reflection on the time we spend in the darkness, and what we can learn from it before turning back to the light.
The Camino de Santiago is a well-trodden path for pilgrimage and silent reflection with other wayfarers. But with the increasingly ubiquitous presence of Wi-Fi, is it encroaching on the aspects of what makes the adventure special?
When the demands of daily life drain us, a respite in solitude is exactly what we need. A testament to the power of aloneness to reconnect us with the steady sense of self we lose.
On a retreat at a cabin in the northern woods of Wisconsin, Parker Palmer strings together pearls of contemplation on silence and solitude. With the help of Merton and Rumi, he finds the catharsis of being forced to reckon with one's angels and demons.
With the world at our fingertips, why get dressed and go out at all? Jane Gross on being alone, venturing to the magic of a movie theater, and contentedly being alone in a crowd.
Alain de Botton's short piece of writing on love and loneliness is elegantly handled in this animated short by Hannah Jacobs and Lara Lee.
We desire to live in meaningful ways, but how do we do so in a rapidly moving modern world? A Benedictine oblate scribes seven principles to help live a compassionate, contemplative, and creative life.
A veteran outdoorsman finds comfort in the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson. For this self-described river rat, nature is the circumstance which dwarfs every other circumstance.
The writer's words from 1955 resonate even more profoundly today in an era of technological ubiquity. A meditation on the gifts of solitude, loneliness, and silence.
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