Book Review: Solo Passage: 13 Quests, 13 Questions by Glenda Goodrich
This memoir is Glenda Goodrich’s first book, and it is a powerful one. At the age of fifty the author began a series of wilderness quests, sometimes yearly and sometimes with gaps of several years. They would begin in a base camp with other participants and a guide or guides, but then she would go off on her own to a solo campsite, where she would fast for four days, drink lots of water, and seek answers to various questions about her life’s journey. Away from the usual accoutrements of her day to day existence, she hiked, prayed, danced, drummed, observed nature, and listened to what it had to say. On one quest she remained naked for most of the duration; on another, she deliberately broke the guidelines and brought along wine and chocolate so she could confront her feelings of guilt and fear. On yet another she ingested a tea brewed from the psychedelic plant ayahuasca; she envisioned stepping into a river of grief: hers, humankind’s, and the Earth’s. She concluded: “The answer was to let grief lead me into what is most alive in me: my art. I needed to take my broken heart and turn it into art. I needed to transform my grief into beauty and keep offering a way for others to do the same.” Each time she went out alone she would ask different questions, confront traumas from her past, and come back with new answers.
On one of the quests she asked, “Why had I waited so long to pursue what really mattered in my life?” What really mattered, in fact, was her fulfillment as an artist. Her writing is descriptive and profound, and she is also a very talented painter. In fact, the book contains an impressive color inset with several pages of her work.
Her accounts of her adventures alone in the wild leave the rest of us with no excuses. After all, as she became a grandmother and even a great grandmother, she continued to go on her spiritual journeys. What’s our excuse? I’m not saying that wilderness quests are for everyone; however, it is essential that everyone have the courage to in some way step out and confront their fears and traumas so that they can find inner peace.
As I read Solo Passage, I was reminded of times when I too made journeys into remote places in the pursuit of life-changing answers. For instance, once when I was on my first journey to South Asia, I found myself near broke in Pokhara, Nepal, unsure of what I should do next. On what I supposed was a whim I started walking alone into the Himalayas without map, sign posts, or guide. I found a tiny village where I spent the night, and the next day I continued upward until I found a remote hillock that I climbed and sat upon and contemplated my existence. I realized that I was running away from human society and all its complexities and perplexities and that I had to go back down and learn to live in harmony with my fellow beings. On my second trip to South Asia I was hitchhiking from Mumbai to Calangute in Goa but I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do when I reached my destination. I turned aside so I could spend a few days ruminating at a tiny, sparsely populated enclave on a more remote beach. On the way down to the shore, I left my belongings and even my shoes with a friendly villager and continued barefoot and without possessions. I found an abandoned grass shack at the edge of the water and spent three days there, meditating and pacing along the shoreline where the gentle waves met the sand. And once when I was staying in a cottage outside Kathmandu, Nepal, another traveler and I dropped acid at dawn; we then hiked into the foothills surrounding the city. As we were peaking on the psychedelic, we sat down on a hillside where we could see countless snow-capped peaks. For a time I even took off my contact lenses so I could explore my inner landscape.
These significant quests don’t happen often, but when they do, they can be life-changing. Even if you don’t feel that you would be up to spending days fasting in the wilderness, I recommend that you read this book. Its sincerity and commitment to truth will give you inspiration for your own life’s journey.