Tonight will be my very last night here at Buffalo Peak Ranch. This place has given me six months of peace, solitude, and healing. I have found what feels like who I truly am for the first time in my adult life. Such comfort with being me. Amazing.

There was a time when the entire planet was like this place, free from noise and congestion. Just fifty years ago we did not have the constant buzz of aircraft overhead. One hundred and we heard only the sound of horses and wooden wheels. Two hundred–just six generations prior–and we were not even to the Industrial Revolution.

Now, there are only a few places remaining on this globe which are free of human clutter. Audible, physical, tangible infiltration of every sense during our entire life, from first breath to last gasp.

We even have cliche terms such as “tune out” to pretend this noise is acceptable. I have failed to find the switch inside which disables the long term detriment to my soul. I now know, I have solid evidence that nothing, no amount of meditation or insulated walls or power vacations will ever replace the healing of nearly two hundred days and nights of perfect, natural silence.

I hope only that I am able to maintain this sense of solitude and peace inside, no matter where I travel. No matter the traffic, the rumble, the sirens, the tension in the density of viral human populations on this planet–I hope I will recall what it meant to watch the sun set and hear those sounds which never ever tire–the wind, the fall of rain, the occasional bugle of the elk and nightly call of the coyotes–the perfection of absolutely nothing.