You are not obliged to be beautiful You don't have to shine. Blooming will happen when it happens. If you can be still for a moment you might notice that the roots that feed you are still reaching silently through the dark.
~ Lynn Ungar in "November" from THESE DAYS: POEMS FOR THE PANDEMIC AGE
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Our image of solitude is often negative: withdrawal, isolation, distance from others. But this misrepresents the hermitage which is like a silent,invisible spiritual concourse; a place where many can converge without sinking into a crowd, and become a community of love. Every human heart is a hermitage, if we care to enter and find ourselves there in union with all. In solitude friend, foe, and stranger are equally known in love.