When I set out to become a hermit, I thought it would be more Zen-like, with occasional overwhelming states of bliss when I walked somewhere in nature.

Instead I experienced what is typically described by shamans around the world:  I was grabbed by demons, stripped, terrorized, brought to the brink of death repeatedly, dipped in shit, fooled, tricked, and laughed at.  (All anthologies of shamanic lore recount a similar list of experiences.)

I’ve apologized for myself for decades now, explaining that I wasn’t properly socialized in the first place – and then I went through this.  In the jungle, it would be understood.  In America, it’s not.  But here I am.