Greetings and Welcome after what feels like a gap of forever since my last post.
Two weeks today since I moved into a rented house way out here Outback in the mining town of Broken Hill, on the traditional lands of the Wilyakali people whose ongoing presence on this country I acknowledge and give thanks for.
And now, it is the location of my hermitage, my safe haven and refuge. But, no, therein lies the conundrum: I love it here; I know I’ve come to the right place to which I’ve been called. But after two weeks, I’m still not feeling grounded; I’m not really here yet.
Culture shock, fatigue, new environment, excitement; call it what you will; something has me not yet settled and in place. Yesterday a small poem came to me that I think expresses exactly the problem.
And now I’m sharing it with you as a way of explaining why the gap, why the block.
Peace and love from me to you.
The call to the desert has been answered. And now, I am here. No, to tell the truth, I’m not actually. Here I mean. So, where am I?
Not there, back there where I came from. Not even sure if ‘there’ really exists, if you know what I mean.
Mind you, when I said ‘here now” I meant it’s been a short now: Now that I’m here. Just. A short stretch – so far.
Here; there; now; so far; it’s all too much. And you know what? It’s all in my head. In my mind I mean.
A wise teacher once taught: First thought, best thought. But for here and now? As in being here now? No thought, more like, is best thought.
Let me share a little secret with you: I have and always have had, atrocious handwriting. And it’s always been a major frustration (but a huge incentive to learn to type, which is one of the best things I’ve ever done).
Perhaps it’s because I had some sort of learning difficulty, maybe it happened because every state in Australia has a different way of teaching kids handwriting, or maybe its just that I was and am lazy. Actually, scratch this last one: I am not nor have I ever been lazy.
Anyway, it appears to be a fact of life, yet I do still get frustrated from time to time. But then there are times when I decide not to care, that it isn’t important, doesn’t matter. Being in one of those indifferent phases right now, has reminded me of an incident that should have taught me this lesson once and for all.
A while back I was gifted a small painting. The artist wasn’t satisfied with it as a background of a planned piece, and gave it to me thinking I might like to ‘do something with it’. I happened to think it quite a lovely painting in its own right actually, and as I was looking at it, I thought of a leaf I had collected a couple of weeks previously. A beautiful very soft and pliable purple leaf from a lovely shrub.
So, right away I just got to sticking that leaf onto the painting. As I pressed it down, a little tear appeared in the leaf. Immediately a lyric from Leonard Cohen‘s Anthem came into mind:
There is a crack, a crack in everything. Thats how the light gets in.
So, I began writing bits of the lyric onto the painting. Untidy, irregular and typically atrocious the hand writing, or printing, is. But then it struck me: that’s the point! I mean the point of Mr C’s sublime words:
Ring the bells that still can ring Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack, a crack in everything Thats how the light gets in.
Here’s how I thought about what I’d written on the painting and how I’d written it: I rang a bell that I can still ring: I thought of and wrote down those beautiful lyrics to compliment the accident (is there any such thing as accident?) of tearing a leaf on a painting that ‘didn’t work’ for the artist, but that was working for me.
Therefore, the painting, the torn leaf and my handwriting was not a perfect offering in any kind of conventional sense as the world would view it. In other words there is a crack, both literal as in the tear in the leaf, and metaphorical as in the imperfections of the whole piece.
But—and here is the vital thing—this little painting, despite its initial rejection by the artist, and with its imperfections, its sloppiness, and its flaws, has provided a channel for light to get in. Into my life, into the piece itself, and now, through this sharing, into your life.
So, who cares if my handwriting is not conventionally perfect or is untidy, uneven, and even a bit tricky to read? I love the message in those lyrics; I felt that this lovely painting with its torn leaf to be the way to put that message in a concrete form. I mean, really, isn’t life too short for perfect (hand)writing?
PS I no longer collect leaves and trap them in this way. I may collect them, but after a time, I return them to their natural environment. Fallen leaves have their function in the cycles of nature too.
The last couple of posts have had me thinking about what I actually do to contribute to the world, to life, to making changes that could bring peace, a safe environment, and a better life for all.
I have to say my commitment to my life as a hermit, as a pilgrim aspiring to live a life apart from ‘the world’ all the while dedicating myself to what we might call Self or God Realisation, has been strengthened.
I have once again come to the conclusion that living a life focused on spiritual development, on art, on prayer, and on contemplation, is the most valuable way I personally can contribute to change, to love, to the good of all. My true nature, my inclinations, my faith, my life experience, all these equip me for this life that has chosen me.
And at the same time, these same factors have left me ill-equipped for life ‘in the world’
In those last two posts, I talked about how so few of us think we have anything to offer a world teetering on the edge. But of course, as I pointed out, the opposite is true. I think I made the point that there is some unique role for each and every one of us in the continued unfolding, upliftment, protection and prospering of all life in this world.
Having said all that, I have to say that for me it’s not always easy to actually realise this in my heart. Intellectually it’s an easy concept to explain (well sort of anyway), but on that deeper heart level, well it’s tricky. Guilt rears its ugly head: ‘It’s all falling apart; I have to do more; But what can I do? It’s useless. I’m useless’.
As I mentioned in one of those posts I think, people have turned away from the horror, injustice, cruelty, and murderous greed and lust for power, for as long as these things have existed – which is obviously for as long as our species has been around. At certain times in history this move away from ‘the world’ has accelerated and intensified. And we are living in one of those periods now.
In the last century so many people have taken up the contemplative life, and many have chosen to make that life one of complete or partial solitude in order that they may be free from distraction in their prayer, study, and contemplative life.
But, many will say, ‘You are in denial. Now is the time you are needed out there. The world and all of life is in danger. You can’t escape and hide in a cave’.(read here stop watching the news, ignore politics, stop spending, become a literal or metaphorical hermit, go traveling, shirk your responsibility to the rest of the world).
Again guilt trips us up and we just keep on trying to find ways to at least rid ourselves of the guilt over our perception that we can do nothing.
But many such people, and that includes me, rather than being in denial, rather than shirking responsibility, have looked at the material world with its horrors, and said, ‘This isn’t right’, and have started to look at other ways to live and, seeing that continuing to struggle against the weight of the world on the world’s terms is pointless, seek to find other ways they can contribute to change. Ways that don’t perpetuate the playing of the game.
And rather than escaping these people (including me, I say with humility) face the world head on, dedicating their lives to the world through creativity, through prayer and meditation, and through the expression of freedom in their choice of lifestyle. They are, as Mahatma Gandhi is supposed to have said, being the change they want to see in the world.
While Gandhiji didn’t actually say those words, (Actually there’s a post coming in a couple of weeks in which I share the full text this quote is apparently derived from. Stay tuned for the link here), he certainly lived his life being the change he wanted to see.
But sadly, this ‘quote’ has come to be seen as a kind of feel good cliché, something the privileged are accused of mouthing while not actually even thinking about changing their lives. Just one more platitude you might say.
But for many, like me in my own way, it is much more: it is a call to action, a respectful and heartfelt request that I embark upon the quest for a more authentic way of living that has love, compassion, service, and truth at the centre of all I do.
Notes from the Hermit's Cave 