In the mountains at 5,000 feet elevation, it’s easeful to flow into the silence of the heart and to awaken the soul. With views of pine trees kissing the landscape of the forest, the sun peeking through the trees, and a winding river cascading and flowing into a waterfall— this is the magic to awaken the heart of being one with mother Earth. In nature, there is an undeniable knowing that we are part of something much more than just a single body, part of a vast collective completely interconnected.
In my early years of meditation, before I ever officially subscribed to the role of being a “meditator”, the mountains were the first home where I landed into the stillness of my heart.
During these days I would hike through the forest and, even though I was by myself, I was never alone, for, in the silence of the forest, before the sounds of a bird chirping or flapping its wings, there was a presence, beyond everything. When I found this silence— I knew that even amidst the biggest changes of my life, there was a transformation happening and that my soul was being poked to come to surface, to become more-and-more alive and to awaken. I could feel how when we silence our minds, the veil of the soul is much thinner and we can identify our true nature and land in the soul-space.
When we are working on the muscle of connecting to our inner being and true nature, solitude is necessary to connect into inner peace. In daily life, we can get caught in a web of the many energies that surround us and get pulled into reactive patterns and ways of being. As we practice being in solitude, it’s possible to quiet our minds, as well as all surrounding energies, and train ourselves to listen to our hearts, allowing ourselves to be guided by our souls into a new way of being where the conditioned and reactive patterns loosen and slowly fall away like the water cascading down a waterfall.
Being an ambivert, (an introvert that can also be an extravert) I need solitude to recharge my energies. Our energy is our life source and there are ways that we can maintain balance as we begin to connect to our true nature— the seed of our soul that lives at our heart. When we can silence outer and inner critics and drop the conditioned roles we carry, the soul begins to guide the way and, as we flow into the soul, we wire our minds, hearts and bodies to touch into the inner grounded nature, an inner mountain, that lives within each of us, is a part of everything and has a peace that can be carried wherever we go.
Whether you are an introvert, an extrovert, or an ambivert—carve out some time to be in solitude, and listen to what your soul is telling you.