With travel largely shut down Italy, I've been forced to face the ruckus inside of my own head. The only path to sanity is to go inward and make the arduous journey to that gateless gate, the fabled place of abiding peace.

As experiences of wholeness and unity seep into my life, I realize that, in essence, I'm nobody. Most of what I call "me" is a bundle of automatic, learned responses cobbled together from distorted memories rooted in the past. The main question emerging from this is, "How exactly do I live my life as an expression of unity and love?"

There are times when I feel paralyzed and terribly alone. When I am immersed in the vast, ever-unfolding space that cannot be generated by the mind, it's mostly abidingly silent. There's truly nothing to do. The unspoken guidance is just be, open up, and let the world flow through.

When I sit down to write, I can't seem to get my oar in the white water of human struggle. I'm confronted with questions too big to boil down into sensible paragraphs. What is the sound of wonder? How do I write essays that say, over and over, "I am, this is, and thou art?"

As I wait patiently for the world to write itself, I find myself entranced by the beauty of blank white pages.