ECHO 29/11/05

Solitude – aspects of recognition, sweet aspects of the self – listening to the quiet voice within, away from the hubbub of others – waking and walking out into the countryside just after sunrise – Rousseau’s ‘consolation and refuge from disappointment’ – providing ‘the diversion of chance’ as Kierkegaard wrote in 1837 – a daily pilgrimage somewhere – perhaps closer to a devotion than I ever thought – when I am out there, for example close to Whitsunn Brook, I am not aware of any strict ritual or repetition, instead the process is closer to an unknown journey, a new story if you will, for even the same path is never an exact repetition of what it was the previous day - it can never be perceived in totality (I have never seen its beginning or its end) – a quest then? – providing en route an inner sanctity with each step – muscle, motion, thought, awareness –