October 3, 2007 – Foggy, warming. Have done packing. Maria checked out my stuff and says, for once, that I am actually learning how to pack for camping.
  I am heading out into the woods for some more time alone. Merton calls this a Vocation to Solitude. To deliver oneself up, to hand oneself over, to entrust oneself completely to the silence of a wide landscape of woods and hills, or sea, or desert; to sit still while the sun comes up over the land and fills its silences with light and shadow. To think and perhaps pray and work in the morning and rest in the afternoon and walk all through the day, and then to sit still again in contemplation and meditation in the evening when darkness falls and when the silence fills itself with quiet and, possibly, stars. This is a true and special vocation, a rare and blessed gift.
  I am never lonely alone in the woods. I am often lonely surrounded by people and the trappings of life. It’s hard. There are few who are willing to belong completely to so much silence, especially in a world filled with noise, to let it soak into their being, to breathe it, and to turn our souls, and the very substance of our lives into a living and vigilant quiet and peace of mind. It’s difficult to do, and I am often unable to do it, especially in the normal turbulent and chaotic course of my life, but maybe out in the woods, I can do it. I have done it before, and it has brought me some of the  most beautiful moments of my life. I will surely try. I will deliver myself up to the quiet, turn myself over to it completely, and hope it welcomes and accepts me.
  Be back in a few days.