'The Soloist'

In the third and fourth centuries, women left the cities of Egypt and Syria and went into the desert alone. They were called ammas — mothers — and they were the female counterparts to the desert fathers whose sayings have been collected and studied for seventeen centuries. The sayings of the desert mothers have been largely lost. Some fragments survive.

Amma Syncletica said: "Just as a bird who abandons the eggs she was sitting on prevents them from hatching, so the monk or nun who moves from place to place causes the death of faith." The soloist does not move because moving is the opposite of the work. The work requires staying in one place long enough to hear what is there.

Hildegard von Bingen composed alone in her cell. The visions came to her as music. She wrote them down.

This is for the woman who knows that her solitude is not loneliness — it is practice.