Dear Solitude- Hernani Wilderness Hut

Dear Solitude, 

About seven years ago, I broke up with you. It wasn't a clean break, and I admit that the little stolen rendezvous we have from time to time fill me with both bliss, and a yearning to have more of you. Yesterday we had an affair to remember, thirty one hours with you and only you. Breaking up was the wrong idea, and though I know our relationship can never be the same, I want you in my life- somehow- again.

 Love, Sammi.

The Hernani Wilderness Hut in twilight majesty

It's been a very long time since I have been able to indulge my need for solitude. The emptiness of being, I encounter myself there, and I find I like the person I meet. Solitude- and nature time- is how I rejuvenate, it's how I give the power back to the wiser self within me. And it's been too long since I gifted myself this, in my mothering.

I have been yelling, screaming, impatient, intolerant, unsettled, run down. Not mothering from the space I yearn to. I had to get out, refresh and rest.

I booked a night at the Hernani Wilderness hut, about an hour from Bellingen. It's located right on the Bicentennial Trail, near Guy Fawkes National Park and New England National Park. It is off the grid, a rustic, homely little nest that suited my purposes perfectly. 

 

The hut sleeps nine, but I was alone, and oh! That was bliss. I went with self-given permission to sleep for the entire time if I needed to. 

But when I arrived, when I took the time to walk the space, create my little nest for the night, and imbue it with a little of my own energy, it was clear to me that sleeping wasn't the biggest priority. 

Instead, I collected firewood, I did jigsaw puzzles (another thing I haven't done since having children, for fairly obvious reasons), I read (and read and read, with no interruptions), and I explored. 

As afternoon passed into night I went for a long walk along the bicentennial trail, and felt myself dropping into not the acute recuperation state that I had expected, but a deep, soulful healing place. As the almost-full moon rose, I walked that trail, followed by two young cows, my familiars for the journey.  At one point I looked up, and saw three statuesque red kangaroos standing at the top of the hill, watching me. They were ancient sentinels. 

I made an earth mandala, I sat inside a burnt out tree, I sang down the sun.

I returned, as the sun sank deep into the earth, to the hut. I lit the fire and sat for hours by it, eating simple food and reading. And then, has the most amazing, blissful, regenerative sleep! Oh, how I long for this solitude again.