Here in the Northern hemisphere fall has us firmly in her grasp and winter is coming even as numbers for the novel coronavirus rise out of control. Whether we live in a place that has imposed mandatory lockdown procedures or not the safe and responsible choice is to follow such procedures ourselves, regardless. For the sake our ourselves, our families, and all of our neighbors.
For many of us that will become much more difficult as winter sets in and the weather makes outdoor activities more difficult. But in all things there is an invitation, and this winter we are being invited to embrace the hermit. Solitude as spiritual practice if you will.
Now is perhaps the time to note that not all spiritual practices are fun, sometimes the spiritual work we have to do is hard, and we don’t see the results for years. That doesn’t make it less important to do that work.
Our Inner Hermit
Solitude isn’t something we get much chance to practice in the modern world. We are hyper connected and most of us live in areas of high population concentration that make being truly alone impossible. Even when I take a walk in the woods it is highly unlikely I won’t see another person trying to do the same. We aren’t well practiced at being alone.
That doesn’t mean we aren’t lonely. But we tend to be lonely in a crowd. And part of that is our lack of experience with solitude. Because solitude and isolation are not the same. Solitude does not have to mean loneliness, either. Indeed solitude has great gifts to offer modern people. And now its practice is not just a spiritual good, but a practical method of protecting life and loving our neighbors.
Hermits of old stepped away from society to focus on their relationship with God, or to remove the distractions that kept them from their meditation or prayer practice. Very few of them did it because they didn’t like people (though there’s always that guy). And almost none of them cut off all contact with others. Indeed many hermits became teachers, passing on the wisdom their solitude had taught them to students of all sorts.
Human beings need relationship, but all of us also have the inner resources to spend time by ourselves, and be better for it.
Complete & Connected
It always worries me a little when couples, in premarital counseling, use language like “he/she completes me.” You, my dear, are complete in and of yourself. You are just as you need to be to be in relationship with this world. There is no missing puzzle piece to finish you off. And looking for another human to fill the holes in yourself will always end in heartbreak.
But for many of us we’ve spent so little time on our own that we haven’t had the chance to realize that we are complete as we are, and that our whole selves are linked, inextricably to the rest of the world. This might sound strange if you’ve been raised in a Western world view that sees humans as the pinnacles of creation, unique and separate; and that sees the rest of creation as a sort of set on which our drama unfolds.
We used to think that plants were distinct organisms. That is a maple tree, and that is an apple tree, and that is a willow. We saw ourselves the same way. But plant science has shown us that in a healthy system a network of soil fungus links every plant in a forest. Every tree, and bush, and tiny growing thing is all tied together in one great web by fungus in the soil. And they communicate danger, and even share resources over this fungal network.
The creatures that rely on those plants for food and shelter are part of the same network, and they all rise and fall together, struggle and thrive. We humans have been pretending that we are somehow distinct little beings marching about leading our isolated lives, desperately clinging to specific other humans because we feel so alone.
Never alone
But we’re not. Alone that is. The air we breathe is a gift from the plant life all around us, and the air we breathe our is a gift back to them. Everything that keeps us alive is a gift from an interconnected network of life that could not exist without those infinite edge connections.
The rocks and the soil give us the matrix for all that life, the nutrients living things need. This whole world a web of gift and connection among all things, living and nonliving. And yet we feel alone. It’s an illusion and one that we can work to dissolve, to retrain ourselves to be aware of the connections that makeup our world.
In the doing, we might just retrain our priorities, our values, our whole lives. If we can be separate, solitary, without being alone how might that change the way we live, the choices we make, and the world we leave for the next generation?
This year we have been shown, by a virus too small to see, just how interconnected we are and how our actions impact those around us. All of us rely on the network of people who enable us to eat food, obtain basic supplies, have heat and water and light.
Practicing Solitude for Connection
My spouse and I have been watching Gavin & Stacey (BBC). About a hapless young couple in love, and all the associated silliness of life. At some point I turned to my spouse and said emphatically: “this is why everyone should live on their own before they even think about getting married!” If you’ve watched the show, you know what I mean (and really, it is lovely and well done.) But we’ve probably all seen it:
We are better members of a community when we know how to be by ourselves. And solitude can make us more deeply aware of the ways in which we are connected to each other.
What does it mean to intentionally practice solitude? Practically, it means staying physically separate from other people, a wise and compassionate choice in a time of pandemic. But if we just stop there we’re likely to fall into simple loneliness. Practicing solitude goes beyond mere physical isolation.
Choice
Solitude is deeply connected. We choose solitude. We make a conscious choice for solitude. In the past we might have made that choice to focus on our relationship with the Divine, to work on our art, to write a great symphony, or to recover from trauma. Today we also have the choice to practice solitude as an act of compassion and care for the whole human family, to save lives, to reduce suffering. And the choice matters. It changes us, if not our circumstances.
If I view my isolation as imposed on me by an outside force (the virus, government authorities, etc) then it becomes a confining cage and an imposed hardship. When I make the conscious choice for solitude in service of others it becomes a gift I can offer for the good of all.
Connection
When the ancient hermits of old chose solitude they often did it to grow closer to the Divine, or to attempt enlightenment, which is to become one with all. In other words they chose to withdraw from contact with most human beings in an attempt to become more connected to all that is.
We too can make a choice to deepen our connection to the divine, to the natural world, even to our fellow humans while we isolate physically. After all, with our regular churn of activities cancelled, with our social calendar cleared we are given a totally unique opportunity to focus our energy, our connection in a way we have not had in the past.
We are all, a little bit, hermits in this moment. What we choose to do with that sudden laser focus will make all the difference. When lockdown started here in the Pacific Northwest last spring I took up running. I hadn’t run since middle school but I needed a way to burn off my excess energy, and I needed to get out of the house (safely.) And so I began running in the woods, and in my neighborhood (where I could easily stay at least a road width away from other people for all our safety). And something surprising happened.
I began to feel connected to the place I lived in a way I never had before. As my feet pounded out miles of forested trails I got to know the trees, the understory plants, the birds and small mammals that had been around me all that time. As I covered the pavement in my own neighborhood I got to know the ancient oak one developer had built around in the 70s, the little stands of spruce and birch, the ornamental trees, and the gardens full of early bulbs.
As I ran I got to know by sight the other early morning runners. In our buffs and our rain gear we’d pass on opposite sides of the street, lifting silent hands in greeting as we passed. I found myself kept company by crows, and gulls and the cheeky squirrels, once even a bob cat who crossed the road ahead of me, each on our silent way.
An Inner Landscape
When you spend intentional time in solitude you discover that your inner and outer worlds are intimately connected. We forget, when we think of ourselves as islands, that islands are connected: tied into the sea floor, to the winds and the waves that shape and change them, to all the creatures that find foothold and roothold on them. An island does not float, unconnected, from all that is around it, and neither do we.
Grief is Real (Joy too)
Here is a truth about solitude: it will force you to face everything. Yes it will free to you to connect with the divine, with the world around you, with your own creativity; it will also reveal all your inner fears, it will let your grief rise to the surface, it will show you the ways you rely on others for affirmation. Hermits of various religious traditions will tell you the same: when you retreat to your cell (monastic enclosure) you will be forced to truly meet yourself, all of yourself.
We numb our hurt with busyness, work, the dopamine release of shopping, booze, stimulating environments, noise, activity. In solitude most of these things melt away. In lockdown too many of us used booze and shopping to try to cover over what all our lost pacifiers had been soothing, it’s true. But if we choose solitude, if we choose to sit down in our cell and face ourselves we will have to face all of ourselves. Our hurts, our wounds, the gaps within. Grief is real. Loneliness is real. The loss we have each and collectively endured this year is heartbreakingly real and that will be there.
But you might be surprised at the joy you find as well, the peacefulness. Amidst the anger and sorrow there will likely be joy or delight as well. All of it is true, all of it is real, none of it is shameful. And, I have found, that when I can feel fully, when I do not hide from or try to ignore my emotions I can also move through them. The sorrow I feel, fully, does not become slow festering resentment. The anger I allow to burn with all its intensity does not turn into an underground coal fire of out of control rage.
And the joy that I let myself feel even in the midst of solitude, or larger suffering, leaves behind seeds that regrow.
Suggestions for Practice
If you want to practice intentional solitude I have some suggestions, gleaned from years of practice myself, given a lot of extra intensity this year!
- Know the why. Why are you practicing solitude? Because you want to become more comfortable in your own company? Because you want to connect more deeply with God? Because you feel called to forge a relationship with the place you live? Because there’s a deadly pandemic and you want to protect your community?
- Seek connection. In the context of your solitude seek connection in places you haven’t before. The natural world, your own body, the Divine.
- Use your time intentionally. It is all too easy for Youtube videos, or doom scrolling Twitter to replace all the time we used to spend out shopping, partying, or meeting up with others. Every hour of the day doesn’t need to be productive, but be intentional about how you spend your time.
- Stay connected to someone you trust. Schedule regular calls with your spiritual director, therapist, or that friend who always calls it like it is. Make sure you have someone to check in on you and to check in with.
- Create. Before the words “I’m not creative” leave your mouth: we are all creative. Everyone of us drew, and wrote, and dreamed as kids. We just got trained that creativity is for “professional” artists. It isn’t. Make something. (A quilt, a garden, a cake, a drawing, a mess of color on paper, a shirt, a card, anything.)
- Get to know your neighbors, the ones who don’t speak with words. Get to know the trees, the heather, the squirrels, the pigeons, all of them. Begin to learn their language.
- Make yourself available to the Divine, even (or especially) if you think that might just be your own best self.
- Ground yourself in an ancient rhythm. It might be the calendar of your religious tradition, filled with its reliable wheel of feasts and fasts, it might be the wheel of the natural world and its equally reliable repeating turn. Listen to the wisdom of those old, old melodies.
- Be lonely. It will happen, don’t flee it. Find ways to care for yourself when the loneliness sets in. Find ways to root yourself in, yourself. (This is something only you can do, as guruish as that is to say.)
- Read. However you like to do that best.
- Nest. We don’t put enough emphasis on the importance of creating a safe, inviting place for ourselves. We rush around cleaning because someone else is coming over. Make sacred space for yourself.
