Reflections on A Life of Solitude in the Hills of Appalachia

I’m not sure I could ever capture in words the meaning that this place and my time here has come to hold in my heart. I’ve spent the last 9 months (and counting) living in solitude in the forested hills of West Virginia’s Appalachia. My 15 acre property sits adjacent to nearly 1000 untouched acres of wild forest, and is surrounded on one side by a small river, which feels more akin to a large creek, and dissected by a crystal clear spring branch aptly named Grace Branch.

I’ve come to feel a deep kinship with the likes of Henry David Thoreau, the infamous author of Walden: or, Life in the Woods. I can say with confidence that living here has brought me to life; and I can only now say that before coming here I didn’t know what it really meant to be alive.

Today, I walked barefoot up Grace Branch, feeling the cold water dancing across my feet, and noticing how the now-fallen autumn leaves have changed the currents of the branch, creating new pools and falls. I came across a crawfish, who was tediously and carefully collecting leaves in the water, and then painstakingly dragging them across the branch in order to architect himself a house along the placid bank of the water. His claws were large and strong, and I noted that for such a small creature, the currents likely felt near-torrential. I looked on in awe and wonder, gazing upon the light pink and gray hues of his body scattered across sheaths of protective armor. It was a moment of intimacy that made my heart swell with joy and love. I have had many such breathtaking moments over these 9 months.

As romantic as I make this life out to be, there have equally been many moments, hours, days, and even weeks of a suffering so deep that words could never do it justice, though I may try. But first a little back-story to set the stage.

I moved here in June of 2023, with ideas about the life I had and the life I wanted to build, which included my then-partner, a plant medicine retreat space, and the idea of a future. But life did not heed my expectations or plans that I had for myself and for my life. It had something much different in mind. Because, for some reason, my orientation in life is to see my self completely clearly. To know the truth, to know God — directly. And I had no clue what I was really asking for. I couldn’t have known.

I had already been through a great deal of suffering in my life, and had already begun a process of dismantling my sense of self and all the beliefs which made that up. I thought I was sailing along an “awakening” path quite nicely. Then, 6 months into my "awakened" fairy-tale fantasy, every sense of stability and security I had, every hope I had for my life, and every secret belief I had been unknowingly propping up, got ripped out from under me, and I ended up here alone — jobless, with no community or family, and my entire life savings tied up in a place that may possibly serve no purpose outside of my own brutal unbinding.

I found myself in solitude, surrounded by the forest, with nowhere to run, and nowhere to hide.

The other side of the perfect intimacy I mentioned earlier with regards to this stunning land is Nature’s uncanny ability to be a pristinely clear mirror, a mirror which has reflected me to myself in ways which at many times has been more than I can bear. A mirror which has made every part of me scream with terror and try to run away, only to find that there was nowhere to go. Because everywhere I look, there I am. So I’ve had no choice but to look on in horror — in horror of the darkest and ugliest parts of humanity which reside within my own breast. Horror of the complete unveiling of the pain of my own life, which I’ve avoided the fullness of at all possible costs, despite my prior decade of therapy, yoga, somatic practices, and psychedelic work. Horror of the harm I have done to others, out of ignorance and naivety. And, most of all, horror at the truth that everything I ever considered myself, every idea or belief I’ve ever had about myself and about the world, turned out to be a complete fabrication. I’ve had to face the truth that Jennifer is nothing more than a character in an elaborate dream.

This place stripped away every piece of armor I had spent my life erecting and maintaining; it destroyed every wall which surrounded and protected my tender heart; it unceremoniously ripped open every valve which was previously slowing down the release of repressed trauma and emotions like rage, terror, grief, dread, hopelessness, and aloneness, creating a confrontation so complete and so full-on that merely naming it takes away from its wretched potency. In short, this place has been the complete death of me. This didn’t all happen at once, though. It happened slowly, painfully, over many months. But the place I now find myself is so exposed, so vulnerable, and so raw that it is now impossible to hold any part of life at arm’s length. The place I now find myself is living life with absolutely no protection. It is now impossible to distract, to avoid, to resist, to numb, to look away, to downplay anything that life is presenting.

All of the coping strategies I once relied on have been demolished — technology, food, sex, fantasy, money, shopping, relationship, substances, career, self-improvement, todo lists, spiritual seeking, connection, busy-ness, and every other form of reaching for something in hopes it will bring comfort or security. All are now entirely absent. Life has become so full-on, so direct, and so forceful that I can say with confidence that this sort of direct experience would have quickly driven me either to suicide or insanity had it not been brought on with some level of grace and gentleness.

I say this not to scare anyone, but to share honestly about just how sobering and confronting this life has really been. The interspersing of this well of suffering with the complete intimacy I shared earlier has made this life not only bearable, but also pregnant with a freedom the likes of which I never could have dreamed. It has revealed an internal silence I had only ever experienced years ago sitting alone in the great expanse of White Sands, New Mexico. It has revealed an internal immovability, a stillness so complete that no-thing can possibly remain intact in its presence. It has revealed a clarity and vision which had become only the faintest childhood memory in my mind.

This, I now know, is really what it means to “wake up”. All other talk of Enlightenment is merely ripples on the surface of a pond, and even that word “Enlightenment” no longer makes sense, as I find my interest in talking about these matters quickly waning. This emptiness, this stillness which has now become my lived reality as I move through the world, is the cold, dark void found in the pond’s unplumbed depths. I can no longer engage with the world and its human dreams, despite experiencing reality with an intimacy which is unfathomable to the mind. I can no longer experience a personal sense of love, despite experiencing love so completely and free of conditions that I realize I never knew what love really was before now.

This 9 months has humbled me so deeply, has knocked me so far down, that I now live on my knees, in constant worship of the simple, ordinary, and stunning divinity imbued in life. Every new layer of my own secret self which is revealed is like falling into the dark abyss again and again, dying over and over to the reality that every single moment of life presents. No more protection. No more running. No more possibility of avoidance. No more past. No more future. No more Jennifer. Facing the simultaneous arising of birth-and-death head-on with every breath taken. And it is stunning.