Creeping Hermit Desire

Wow, it was almost two months ago when I last posted.

A few days after that post, I began three weeks of house sitting in a place without Internet access. I could get on at a nearby library, yet somehow just didn’t take advantage, instead falling easily into web-withdrawal. But the house sit ended in early January .

Well, this isn’t the first time I’ve chosen disconnection.

In the monastery, I loved the strictures that limited social interaction and entertainment activity. "Cave time." That’s what the formation mistress called the separation provided by a monastic novitiate. She was referring to the story that Benedict shook off his urban social life by living in a cave.

But our monastic life was hardly isolated. We almost always had guests, and chatted through two meals with them. During work periods, we had unlimited Internet access on private computers. Although many monasteries carefully regulate computer use, our old sisters seemed to have no clue that computers can provide a social life. Still, I policed my own computer activity.

So what provided the overwhelming sense of separation from the standard, worldly, social whirl? Limited phone calls, rare personal visits, staying on the grounds except for group excursions on approved errands – no more than once a week. Somehow these opened up a huge physical and psychic space. I worried about stopping close communication with friends and family. But it was the effect on the others that was worrisome. For me, the one on the journey, the excitement of taking off swamped any feelings of loss - for a good long while, at least.

And I miss that emptiness. I still, sorely miss it.

I have friends who have taken hermit vows while staying in the world - with a job, an apartment, and all the rest. They create their own cave effect. But I don’t have a hermit’s call. It’s in the rubbing of close relationships that my spirit shines.

So maybe that’s why I’ve returned to a bad, old habit: going in waves of regular communication and then withdrawal. Every so often, life provides a trigger and I light out for the psychic hills…

But shoot, I used to disappear into the literal hills. Hmmmm... that sounds pretty enticing right about now...