Notes from the Hermit's Cave

Musings on one Hermit's life & world

Dear Diary: The Story of Your Birth

Posted on March 16, 2022 by Notes from the Hermit's Cave

Namaste friends and Welcome

I wrote this little remembrance about the birth of my journaling life some time ago. I thought it might be nice to share it here on my new Notes from the Hermit’s Cave blog as keeping a journal has been such an important aid to my own ongoing healing, and has been key to my spiritual journey.

See the fascinating update at the end!

For many of us keeping a journal is a key element in our efforts to live a good life, or even to have a life: it can be a tool for healing, a means to bring some order to the chaos in our hearts and heads, and a venue for reflections on life, the Universe, and everything. For me, it’s been all of these things and more.

I guess for most people Henry David Thoreau is best known for the book he wrote about his time living alone in a small cabin on Walden Pond in Massachusetts, titled funnily enough Walden. And I suppose most people would have no idea that all, or pretty much all, his writings, lectures and so on, came from his Journal. Note the capital: he himself called it The Journal.

A few years ago I read a very cool book called The Book of Concord: Thoreau’s Life as a Writer, which is an examination of, yes you guessed it, his life as a writer. What made it extra interesting was the way the author (William Howarth) used The Journal as his way into Thoreau’s writing and life.

Let me tell you one of the many things that jumped out at me from this fascinating book: the reason Thoreau started keeping The Journal in the first place. It seems that one of his neighbours in Concord was Ralph Waldo Emerson (imagine that if you can). Anyway, one day Emerson says to Thoreau,

‘What are you doing? Do you keep a journal?’

Now, it seems that Thoreau had been running around telling everyone he was a writer and that he was examining nature and studying the life of the town. All that writerly kind of stuff. But he hadn’t been keeping a journal.

So, he answered Emerson’s challenge by beginning The Journal. And, as I said, all his writing from then on came right out of that journal. Sometimes, believe it or not, he literally ‘cut and pasted’ from The Journal; he actually tore out pages or cut up passages and stuck them together to form the final manuscripts. Now, that is called having supreme confidence in your own work.

Anyway, after I read that, it got me thinking about my own journal and how I came to begin it. As I sit typing this, my journal is safely stored away in a trunk in my sister’s garage. (See the update at the end. Strange syncronicity indeed)

There are close to one hundred separate volumes, mostly school type notebooks (called exercise books in Australia), some exotic volumes from travel in India and a few odd looking specimens of varying shapes and sizes. Hard to believe really: so many words.

This is my personal journal; my art journals are another matter. Just wanted to make that distinction, though oftentimes it’s hard to tell the difference.

In late 1980, I returned to Australia after a few months in New Zealand. I wasn’t in great shape and was hanging around at my parents’ house and feeling like a ‘wet week in a thunderstorm’ (if you get my meaning). One day, my mother out of the blue said,

‘Why don’t you start keeping a diary?’

Of course you don’t know my mother, but believe me when I say that this is most definitely not the kind of thing I’d have ever expected her to suggest to her son as a way for him to deal with his very poorly mental condition.

But, just like Thoreau after his chat with Emerson, I headed to the shops without delay, bought a school exercise book, and began my diary (I often interchange the terms diary and journal). And I’m still at it, as I’ve said.

And you know what? Thinking about my journal now, I feel a sense of pride. I don’t mean arrogant, ego driven ‘pride’: my heart is glad. I have consistently for over forty years kept a record of my life which goes deep into my psyche and beyond. Well that’s what it often feels like.

Sometimes it’s been an extremely detailed account and written every day; other times there have been gaps with just scant little notes to record my doings, thoughts, feelings, and so on. But, at least it is there. I have a profound sense of achievement when I think of my journal. Maybe I need to adopt the capital like Thoreau: My Journal.

My final words must be then, thanks Mum. I know I thanked you when you were still in this world with us, but it can’t hurt to announce my thanks to the world (as much of it as reads this blog anyway) can it?

Update

The trunk containing The Journal has left my sister’s garage (thank you little sister) and is as I type this update, on a truck heading this way and will arrive late tonight or early tomorrow.

The timing is completely serendipitous: By ‘chance’ I came across the above piece of writing today as I was looking for other things, then a little while later got a call from the shipping company with the news! Pickup wasn’t scheduled for a few more days.

Of course I still regularly spend time with The Journal, perhaps more than ever, and it will be very nice indeed to have the whole thing with me once again.

Yet Another Update

Yes indeed, it certainly is, nice I mean. Here is The Journal in its full glory (one volume missing but will be here soon)

With These Words … Part 5

Posted on March 12, 2022 by Notes from the Hermit's Cave

Well my friends, here we are at Part 5 of my little mini series. As it happens, it’s also the final part.

It’s been a fascinating trip, this little journey we’ve shared. Reflecting on the set of vows usually made by nuns and monks, and how my way of living fits with these undertakings. How well do I live these vows? As a philosophy directing my life, do they work?

Let’s get on shall we? The final vow is Presence, which is the new interpretation on the vow of Stability taken when a person makes a life commitment to a particular place and or community. Obviously for one who moves as much as I do, presence is probably the appropriate concept to take its place

Presence

Just now I was thinking that by far the easiest of the topics we’re looking at here, is Presence. Yet at the same time it is the absolute hardest to write about – even worse to think about.

Why easy? Well, because in a very real sense there is nothing we can say about presence or the present. Of course I could spend the rest of my life reading books, studying, and even writing about it myself; how to live here and now. But all the time the obvious would be staring me in the face.

How can we be anything but present? How is it possible to be anywhere but here? And surely it’s always now? A thing called ‘the past’ doesn’t exist except in memory, and the future? Well, where is it? it doesn’t exist. Never will. I know it’s kind of common to hear things like ‘We’re living in the future’, but are we really? Of course not. So, end of story right there I guess.

Except that it’s not, is it? This is where it gets to be the hardest topic to talk about. It seems none of us – us humans anyway – can get our heads around the aforesaid obvious fact of life: we are always here, and it is always now. Why is this so?

Well, speaking only for myself, you understand, I think about it too much. I seem to have convinced myself (courtesy of my ever-busy mind) that there is a way to learn to be present; a how to guide, that I can read or invent myself that will finally allow me to put myself into the present, in the here and now.

And all Along I am sitting here, thinking and writing about how to be present or put another way, how to sit in this spot right now.Do you see where this is going? If I’m not here and it isn’t now, then where am I? And when is it?

Sorry, but I have no answers. Even asking the questions is denying the obvious: I am here, it is now. The trouble is my mind isn’t at all ever content and happy with the present, regardless of how I might feel about it.

In that case, can I say that in my way of living I am committed to presence? To be in the present? Well, speaking for me personally – whoever that me is – perhaps the better question might be: Do I fully realise that I can only be here and now because that’s all there is?

To that I would have to say definitely not. My mind is continually on the run between the deep past and the unreal and unknowable future and all points in between. And my mind loves repeat journeys too!

So how do I intend to come to that place of the realisation of presence? Well, before we go on, you can’t actually intend to be present. Intention is about …

Enough!!!! Enough mind stuff. Please

The truth is, there is nothing for me to DO. I am here; it is now. That’s all there is.

Except one more thing to do: I just have to wake up

See the Tenderness

Posted on March 11, 2022 by Notes from the Hermit's Cave

Over the years I’ve tried many types of meditation. But I always come back to the same method. I call it The Third Eye technique.

Once I’ve settled quietly, perhaps having taken a few deep breaths to relax a little, I bring my awareness to the centre of my forehead, the spot between my eyes. Traditionally, this is where the Third – or spiritual – eye is located.

(Actually that particular spot is in line with the Pineal gland which is located in the centre of the brain between the hemispheres, and its function is to help regulate sleep patterns.)

And then? Well, I know I’m not alone when I say that, no matter how hard I try, it seems a lot of the time nothing happens. Well, thoughts happen. Anxieties and memories intrude their pesky (and sometimes ugly) presence. So much for emptying the mind and having transcendental experiences.

Well, in fact despite evidence to the contrary, I – along with all of you who ‘try to meditate’ – do sometimes achieve a state of no thought, of total quiet. The problem is, of course, in a state where there is no thought it’s impossible to think: ‘Hey, I’m having no thoughts.’

As for the (rare) transcendent experience referred to: on those occasions something other than a thought, memory, anxiety, comes up; something that transcends those mundane ‘normal’ things.

See the tenderness. See the tenderness. See the tenderness.

These words seemed to come right after I’d thought for the millionth time ‘nothing’s happening’ while I tried to meditate one day a while ago.

Not spoken by a voice exactly, yet heard with my internal or mental ear. Clear and distinct; the same fully formed injunction repeated three times.

But, see the tenderness? I’m not sure where these words came from. The truth is I am a gentle person by nature; I am not naturally ‘tough’ or ‘aggressive’ or anything like that. But it’s also true that I’ve been all those things over long periods of my life. Nature vs nurture you see.

Anyway, what tenderness? Where? Does it refer to the tenderness that exists in the world?

Perhaps it’s to do with what I am supposed to be reading or otherwise taking in? Books, movies, and other story sources that speak of tender things and people?

Or might it be an injunction for me to redouble my efforts to turn away from the wold? To turn away from the horrors and the nastiness of Maya or the material and essentially illusory world?

And by this turning away from the world, perhaps tenderness is to be found and seen in a turning to the interior world, in the spaces of contemplation within Self.

This injunction (repeated emphatically three times. Sorry I already said that didn’t I?) does seem to have come from some part of my Self that longs for a gentler way to be, for a more tender way to relate to others and to Self.

Ideas and questions to contemplate and to reflect upon. Meanwhile, it’s a good start to know that even if my mind tells me otherwise, when I meditate, something is happening. Sometimes.

Peace

I Think, Therefore I Suffer. Sometimes

Posted on March 9, 2022 by Notes from the Hermit's Cave

Welcome

Let me share with you some random thoughts that came up as I sat to meditate one recent morning. As I settled, a thought struck me.

One among many of course, but this one got my attention. It went something like this:

‘I am where I’m at today because of the life I’ve lived: my choices to travel, my continual need for change and variety. And not to forget the impacts of my health on decisions over the years.’

It was a bad feeling coming on as you can tell.

So, I guess (the thoughts kept coming) I’ve had the fun and adventure and now’s the time to pay the price.

This particular thought train is an antique I’ve been run down by many times. And the way it going this time was downhill fast; it was one of those ‘poor me, what a horrible life I’ve got’ trips. Then, the next thoughts were a bit more truthful:

I live with my life partner and soulmate in a Pacific Coast town, literally five minutes walk to a spectacular beach and some special coastal scenery. The town isn’t too big, and not too small: it has everything we need without the crowds, traffic, noise, pollution, shopping malls, and other paraphernalia that goes with a materialism gone mad.

We live in a very comfortable small house in a Subtropical paradise of a holiday park resort flanked by a beautiful creek and forest. Every day we get to see and watch nicely many species of birds.

Each night literally hundreds of bats fly over on their way to feed, and very often we get to see wild kangaroos up close. Not to mention the lizards, ranging from tiny Geckos to metre long beauties.

It’s true: I did make that mental list. No, I thought, this is no price I have to suffer to pay for past decisions and actions. These are gifts I’ve been granted. Oh, did I mention that I get to pretty much spend all day every day doing more or less exactly what I want or feel lead to do?

This was one time when I was able to divert that ‘poor me look how I’m suffering’ thought train, and let the ‘I’m really and truly blessed’ express to roll on through.

Peace and love to you all from me

Lighting Candles, Learning Lessons

Posted on March 8, 2022 by Notes from the Hermit's Cave

Not many people know this, but I’m a big fan of clichés. Not always, only when they serve a purpose, make a point, illustrate an idea, or have some other relevance or meaning. I remember an occasion when I witnessed a perfect illustration of a favourite cliché.

Once, many years ago I was sitting in a café in the Himalayas on a late monsoon afternoon when the clouds hung low and the lights were on so people could see. Suddenly, the lights went out.

A collective groan from the full café: people writing in journals, reading books and so on (no smartphones or laptops in those days), had to stop what they were doing. Although not an uncommon occurrence in those parts, lights going off was a bit of a pain for us spoiled tourists.

Anyway, one of the waiters fetched some candles, and began lighting one on each table. I think there were perhaps ten tables. I watched him as he moved slowly around the packed, but tiny café. As he lit the candle on the very last table, the electricity came back on.

Again the collective sighed, this time in relief, as light flooded the café. I heard one voice say something to the effect of: ‘he shouldnt have bothered, I mean the lights came on eventually’ .

‘Well, you know, if he hadn’t made the effort to make some light for us, maybe the power wouldn’t have come back so quickly’, I commented casually.

Another collective sigh and murmurs of, ‘Yes true’, and ‘far out’, ‘never thought of that’ and ‘so profound’. All this as response to some off the cuff, random remark by me.

And the cliché?

Its better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.

This cliché goes so well with something I like to say that has become a bit of cliché in itself (because I say it so often):

Just look at what you can do, not what you can’t do.

Of course, I didn’t invent this one, but still, to me it makes sense. For example, In the little scene described above, we couldn’t do anything to turn the electricity back on, but one of us (the waiter) could fetch and light some candles.

At Dictionary.com, it tells me that a cliché is:

a trite, stereotyped expression; … usually expressing a popular or common thought or idea, that has lost originality, ingenuity, and impact by long overuse.

Rubbish I say! Overuse? Why does using something a lot make it bad? Why should an idea or thought be robbed of its meaning or power, simply because its been around for a long time? There’s no need to overthink the topic; I’m not saying we should always use clichés. But at the same time, clichés have usually become clichés because they are true, or say something in a succinct and accessible way.

Anyway, this post isn’t about grammar, it’s about lighting candles and looking at and realising what you can do, and not cursing the darkness and being pulled down by thinking about what you can’t do.

Does it help? The lighting of candles? The realising of what you can do? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Nothing, not even a cliché, is perfect.

Love and blessing from me to you.