There is a toughness to this, with oneself and others, that really resonates. Reread a few times & still this line/sentiment stand out: ‘Sooner be handicapped “than”(?) silenced!’

The sense of a person on a deadly serious, metaphysical adventure without the time for distractions or frivolity (I think of Henry James’ short story The Beast in the Jungle - ‘a man on a tiger hunt does not take along a lady’)

The gravity of the journey & what’s at stake is deliriously summed up in hallucinatory closing lines ... the devouring moon and sun. Yowzers!