Have you seen "Tracks?"  Based on the true story of a woman who in the middle of the Seventies trekked 1700 miles alone through the inhospitable country that stretches across central Australia, "Tracks" is a portrait of determination, heartbreak, and profound passion for the unknown.  Bent on probing the riches of solitude, this woman, Robyn Davidson, now 64 years old, spent two years acquiring and training three adult camels, along with a baby camel, then set out into the incredibly vast Australian Outback.  She passed by Ayer Rock, the largest "rock" in the world, met and walked with, for a while, many native elders, shot down some charging wild bull camels, encountered a number of people who treated her with immense kindness and, sadly, lost her beloved dog one night along the way.  It was a remarkable journey.
     Anyone who has spent weeks and months in wilderness alone (as I have) can, I think, relate.  We love the allure of setting off alone into the wild, we delight in waking up to a sky that seems made only for us, we revel in our ability to shut ourselves off from the emptiness and vagary of the civilized world.  We like being alone.
     As those of us who, whether we are spiritually inclined or not, have experienced such moments can attest, solitude opens windows into the soul.  It lets us see things we would not see in the company of others, discloses to us insights we would not have seen had we remained in the thick of human community.  We see life in a new and richer light. Moreover, even a cursory look at the lives of the great spiritual masters, Buddha, Mohammad, Zoroaster, Confucius, Jesus, and countless others tells us that they grounded their lives in times of solitude and contemplation.  It was out of these hours and days of prayer and reflection that they emerged to bring the world their often life changing observations.
     Whether you use it to call more deeply to yourself, the "Great Spirit" (as singer Neil Young says), Brahman, or God, step into solitude.  Step into being alone.  Step into the fact of a universe that speaks, even if we are not, a cosmos that has been made to teach us when we do not know, a world that is powered by a truth that we are all made to find. Step into the inexhaustibility of a creation grounded in an infinite personal God.