One of the fruits of the past two and a half years in the woods has been a crop of writings about the inner life. I have spent a great deal of time alone in nature; this kind of introspection has been unavoidable. Mostly these reflections have taken the form of long-form essays. Often there is some literary inspiration for the essay – Dante, the figure of Abraham, Carl Jung, or others. The essay below, “The Two Islams and the Two Christianities” – on the kind of religion known in Islam as Sufism – is a good sample. A favorite is this one on “Solitude and Meeting.” More can be found under the category “the Inner Life.“