I’m learning that when I feel “lonely”, I actually need to be alone. Really alone. No books. No crowds. No electronic devices. No animals. No distracting or absorbing tasks of any kind. I need to just *be*. For the “loneliness”, I’m realizing, is a result of being separated from myself. From my inner workings. My intuition. My senses. My heart. And when I’m separated from myself like this, I begin to look for what I need in other places, in other people. I search for an external “fix”. But no one, no matter how connected we are, knows me like I do. No one can soothe my aches or dispel my confusion like I can. No one has the energy or attention for me that I do. And so when I come back to myself (with respect and full commitment), my loneliness melts away and is slowly replaced with a familiar and deeply rooted confidence, a knowing that has no doubts, no fears, no shame, only a sense of vastness, and timelessness, and profound reassurance.
— heidi kalyani, 2016
from the *nothing is black and white* project: illustration created out of meditation with a single unbroken line