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Many years ago, I withdrew into the proverbial pathless forest. It had to be pathless, otherwise it would not have been my path to myself.
Little did I know that the brush hid an abandoned cabin and that I would stay there for ten years. Because I was careful to never come and go, never create a new path. No unexpected guest arrived at my cabin for more than 3,600 days and nights.
Brush, new trees beginning their growth to the towering mighty redwood crowns, ferns and downed ancient redwoods made it impossible to see either my path or my place.
In fact, only after I acquired a small wood stove could smoke have guided one to my home. But such a person would have come a long deep way into the forest.
Being alone that first Christmas Eve, when I had only two kerosene lamps and a box to sit on, while the rain thundered down in the cold darkness, taught me more about life and myself than all of my previous years of life.
A great blessing for someone is to have the experience of the palace and that of the hut, in the same life.
I would add to that one is blessed to have had abundance on Christmas Eve, friends and family and material things, and also the experience of having nothing and nobody.
All I owned was in my knapsack; and much of what I learned came after I had conquered the consciousness of solitude.
Raphael O'suna
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