LONELINESS

Loneliness and Aloneness are not the same;
I'm often aware of Alone-ness ,
But that's a state of being,
Rather than a particular feeling.
I'm currently standing in the possibility that....

We are, first and last, alone:

Everything else is just distraction.

Aloneness is a state of being I'm quite happy with.
Loneliness is something else.

I wrote what follows on New Year's Day, 1990 --
The last time I recall feeling "lonely".
Maybe there's something I got then that dis-appeared it ......

Behind the tear-filled eyes of Loneliness

 I feel a blaze of light;

Man in his inwardness -- 

The image of God, the fullness of Good

That can't get out

And find its Otherness.

That was before I went to live the life of a hermit for 8 months in the karri forests of the continent's southwest,

Where I sometimes felt afraid,

But never felt lonely.

It was there, away from the distractions of relationship,
That I discovered the richness and fullness

Of the "otherness" that has always surrounded and supported me.

Aloneness is a partial truth,

Arising from a misspelling,
And a misconception of "All-one-ness".

Loneliness, I've concluded, is a feeling we get

When we shut down

And lose touch 

With all that we are.