Notes from the Hermit's Cave

Musings on one Hermit's life & world

Pray & Work

Posted on March 31, 2026 by Notes from the Hermit's Cave

One of the topics I like to explore on YouTube (my ‘break’ is over and I don’t think I’m scrolling quite do much as I was before I took that break) is the lives of hermits; the monastic life as lived by nuns, monks and priests of any and all religious traditions or none.

That’s more than one topic isn’t it? Well, you get the drift. In any case, last night I rediscovered a nice documentary on a monastery in the United States I had already seen but decided to watch it again. Here’s the link.

A monk on the doco talks about The Rule of Benedict. Just as the name suggests this is the rule (of life) written by Saint Benedict of Nursia in the 6th Century to help guide monks and nuns living in monastic communities in all aspects of a shared life dedcated to God.

Benedict had a good insight into such a life (and human nature) and the ‘Rule” is in fact a text containg many instructions and a great deal of advice on monastic life centred around what he termed Ora et Labora – the very essence of the contemplative life in his view.

It’s Latin of course and translates to Pray and Work and is followed by many monasteries in the Christian traditon. Of course, monastic communities in most traditions have similar sts of guidelines or ‘Rules’.

The primary focus and function of monastics is to pray. That’s what they are there for. But Benidict figured that some kind of balance was needed; not only so the monasteries could support themselves but so monks and nuns actually got some physical activity. Hence the equal emphasis on work.

So, the two ideals work together in a way supports a balanced, ordered, harmonious and peaceful community (in theory). Pray and work are intertwined. Even the Latin for pray, Ora is embedded in Labora, the word for work.

We don’t do rules here at the hermitage, not into them at all actually, but I do like this Pray and Work idea very much. It is, after all, what we do too, and why we are here. In fact, I try to approach everything I do as a prayer. It doesn’t always work in the sense that, while prayer and work may be one and the same, I tend to sometimes forget that fact. So having this pray and work principle as a central tenet of my life reminds me to remember that I am actually doing both.

I pray – quite a lot actually. Chanting mantra, reciting set prayers I’ve gathered into my practice over the years or that I’ve written myself. Then there is the prayer that comes from within silence, the contemplation of the texts I study, the things I see, hear, or talk about.

There is the cultivation of ‘good thoughts’ and feelings of compassion. Just sitting, being still and quiet with an open mind. Simply stopping to look at a flower, a tree or another person and sense the beauty. All these and more are prayer.

Which leads us to the ‘Work’ side of the equation. What exactly is my work? First thing to say is, I am a hermit and a monk and my primary job is to pray. If It sounds like a closed system, that’s because it is.

My work includes my studies and practices which are aimed at cultivating those good thoughts and open mind we talked about, and that attempt to ‘create good vibes in the world’. (Which, as I’ve written many times, is best achieved when I am secluded at least a little from the busyness of the world.

Lest you imagine that I am missing out on the physical activity seen by Benedict as essential to balance, let me assure you I do get quite a lot of exercise – more all the time as I recover. It’s my yoga practice, an integral aspect of my prayer and work life.

This blog is a part of my work. Though, to be honest, publishing this blog and engaging with our little community, gives me so much pleasure, joy, and ‘good vibes’, that I really can’t call it ‘work’. Writing and posting does me good!

When it comes to work, it’s not so much about what you do (we gotta do what we gotta do), but more about how you approach that work.

What transforms work into prayer is doing it for the right reasons. But who’s to say what are ‘right reasons’? Well that’s easy: you. Or me. Or any other individual deciding for themselves and for themselves alone.

As I said my work – and prayer – is to try to create good vibes in the world. I don’t always succeed but I think it really is the effort and intention that is most important. And not being attached to the outcomes. As in: ‘Aren’t I so holy and virtuous praying for the world all the time’. Hardly.

No. Create the vibe, let it go, and let it do its thing.

A Nail Biter of a Post

Posted on March 21, 2026 by Notes from the Hermit's Cave

I’ve been biting my nails lately. A lot. At least that’s the thought that occured to me just now as I sat hunched over chewing on my right thumbnail.

Truth be told, there isn’t a time I remember when I didn’t chew my fingernails and pick at my toe nails. When I was a child my mother would coat my fingernails with an allegedly foul tasting liquid meant to curb my appetite for fingernail.

Alas, I came to like the taste so much that it had the opposite effect. Rather than put me off biting and chewing, this strategy simply served to make me want more.

Thinking back on it now, that liquid was likely some kind of poison. Not much health and safety oversight in those days. But I’m still here – and still biting my nails.

Why? It is actually a very good question. I know it’s very often looked upon as being a ‘bad habit’. Especially if youv’e left childhood behind and are still chewing. To me nail biting has been a response to anxiety, worry, fear and uncertainty.

Maybe as children we find comfort in biting nails at those times of trouble, and it doesn’t take long for the habit to become ingrained and we have turned into nail biting adults – perhaps still finding the same comfort.

Actually, it does seem to me to be a habit I would like to leave behind: nails made deformed, ragged, and unsightly from a lifetime of chewing.

‘Stop biting into yourself’, my mother would constantly remind me. ‘Stop chewing on yourself.’

Maybe it’s a self esteem thing, a means of self harm in a sense: ‘I don’t feel good about myself, so if I start eating bits of this ugly thing, I might eventually erase myself completely.’

Mmm. Perhaps. It’s a clue. Headed in the right direction, But what if it’s not an attempt to erase ‘this ugly thing’, the physical body, the thing we mistake for ‘me’ and with which we engage with the world?

What if, instead, it is some kind of misguided or unconscious way we try to dig deeper inside of ourselves? Could it be an attempt to get past the physical and right to the core of the ‘real’ me? To our ‘inner’ Self?

After all, I’ve often discovered myself happily chewing nails while thinking hard, deep in reverie, reading intently, or trying to get ‘to the root’ of something. Sound familiar?

Mind you, I’m not saying now that chewing nails is a ‘good habit.’ As a strategy to strip away the physical body in order to get to the real me deep down somewhere there inside, it hasn’t proven particularly effective.

Perhaps there will come a day when I no longer chew my nails. Maybe there will be time when my other more legitimate self enquiry practice will allow me to access that inner Self, when I will finally realise my true nature and discover who I truly am.

First step on this path is to remember that there is no ‘good or bad’, no ‘one day’, no ‘future time’. There’s only what is and there is only the eternal now.

The other advice to give myself as I end this post is – when trying to change a behaviour – is don’t fight against or resist the behaviour itself. Instead I need to propose viable alternatives.

I need to make new habits.

A Post By Another Name – It’s still a Post

Posted on March 14, 2026 by Notes from the Hermit's Cave

No posts for a while. There isn’t one today either actually. I simply felt the need to reach out, connect, write.

Blogging requires a continually refilling reservoir of ideas. And it is then necessary to reflect on those ideas (or at least one of them at a time) and then to commit them to paper – or screen.

And despite my, at times desperate longing to actually write a blog post and to share it here, the fact is that no ideas, and not a lot of energy and mental space to reflect and write have made available to me.

There’s the problem right there isn’t it: ‘at times desperate longing? Talk about attachment to outcomes, to a clinging desire for results. So much for my claim to not being ‘goal oriented’. Hardly.

And it’s not as if I’ve not had a lot of other stuff going on in my life. While I mostly manage to carry on with my spiritual practices and routines, it seems that along with physiotherapy exercises daily, medical appointments, and the rest, I haven’t been left with much physical, mental, or creative energies left over for much else.

But, really, it’s the attachment and clinging that’s the real bugbear. The ‘reasons’ for not writing and posting may well be good and true, but still I get frustrated, not being able to jot down and send my notes out into the world.

So, just be. Don’t worry about it. That would seem to be the sensible advice.

And I am trying to take that advice – thank you. Be patient. Be present. Be quiet – keep silence. Be still and listen.

That’s all there is to it really. Ideas and energies are there. Or do I mean here?