That's what coming face-to-face with six months in the woods will do to you: as soon as you realize you have the chance to be a different person, you become one. You can forget who you are. This is no accident when you've spent miles wondering, with every labored step, Who is this person who has decided to try this?--wondering who you are. You have nothing but time to answer the question, to give a new account of yourself. Your only witness might be a blanket of cool moss on a sunny day, or a panorama of endless mountains, or a young doe gazing by the Trail. You've yet to discover that the journey is the destination. So you lose yourself, then you find yourself again, farther along.

The evil components of our shadow are the part of us that we deplore, the part of us that we prefer not to admit. One must set themselves free from all inhibitions in order to initiate close encounters with their innermost monster. By standing toe-to-toe with the part of ourselves that we most detest, a person is in a position to slay their fiendish sense of self and, by doing so, undergo a soulful transformation.