After reaching critical mass, the first circle of my trek to self-liberation, I began feeling a deep hunger to know myself. All the questions that arose while being in that desperate state were merely variations of the same question: What am I?
It felt like a cosmic joke at the time. There was WAY too much noise in my head to even begin trying to answer such an abstract, existential question. Besides, I would have to admit that I didn’t really know who I was, and that was a tough pill for me to swallow.
My first step over the line 🎧 into the second circle of self-liberation began as soon as I offered up my overstimulated lifestyle “to the gods” as sacrifice. That meant leaving everything I knew to embrace a new way of living that mitigated stressors and maximized solitude.
I’ll explain what I mean by solitude. The simplest definition I have is “the state of being alone.” However, I believe it is more than just a “state of being” and “being alone” is not necessarily a requisite.
Practicing solitude is more of a discipline of being than a state of being. I close the gap between my surface self and my deep self through the power of silence that solitude offers.
I learned to trim the fat out of my life and nurture a more subtle and powerful connection to the universe. My practice of solitude fostered a relationship between myself and the silent world around me. But more importantly, I came to know the silent world within me and I learned to explore my imagination.
In my experience, nature, the great outdoors, is the most effective backdrop to practicing solitude and exploring imagination. All conditions of life are effective backdrops, really. But nature has that kind of mellowing, static-neutralizing element that seems to bring a little sight in the fog of my mind when I’m trying to engage more profoundly with my experience.
WHY IS THIS THE SECOND CIRCLE OF SELF-LIBERATION?
A “water ripple” began as soon as I made the decision to heed the call of my deep self. Like a leaf floating near the impact zone of a fallen rock, I was propelled to the outer ring just after I let go. Reaching critical mass was the first moment I explored the ripple, it was the “enough-is-enough” moment that I needed to reorient my life towards liberation.
When I was in the domain of the second circle, I was still learning, experiencing and using the first circle. As I journeyed through my practice of solitude, I was adding more texture to my understanding of reaching critical mass.
Practicing solitude is the prerequisite to diving deep into our reality-obscured knowledge of self. Without a practice of letting go of guilt, shame, anger, hopelessness, then we become stuck in a maelstrom of anxiety, confusion and depression.
Solitude, the profound silence discovered in a meditative practice, is where purifying gratitude and forgiveness blossoms. It is the venue of our expanding awareness.
To wrap it up, solitude is a practice whereby the practitioner welcomes back and integrates their spiritual warrior, the courageous side of self that carries us to the deepest depths of our personal and collective darkness, to slay the monsters that lurk there and retrieve great tombs of knowledge.
The next circle of liberation is “opening up to the cosmos.” It’s weird. Its teeming with contradiction. It’s a paradoxical wonderland. But most importantly, it offers a meaningful experience of the parts of something unknowable.
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