‘All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone’
(Blaise Pascal).
I’ve been back a few days from a yearly ‘wilderness retreat’ and it was beautiful; hard, tiring, full of laughter, tears & honesty and at times almost overwhelming.
The wilderness doesn’t exist for you or me and these weekends can be marked by bad weather, cold and driving rain, but not this time. I could see for miles across to other islands and with little sign of other human beings.
Temporary community, as ever, made it what it was: cooking together, talking together, being honest & crude together, sharing together and experiencing silence together. The idea of community is sometimes idolised and it is good: but the reality of making it and keeping it as a living entity does involve tensions- mercifully few this time, but there have been other times when it has not been so. ‘Community’ is not a comforting meme: if it’s honest, it’s raw and sometimes bloody hard. As a result, many of these people whom I only see once a year have become good friends.
This year it was the shared and structured silence that I found most fulfilling. It’s partly because I’ve had to talk a lot in front of others in the roles I’ve held over the last 25 years. I enjoy the experience of speaking in front of others and it is adrenaline producing but as an introvert, it is sometimes exhausting. More negatively, I’ve experienced the hollow feeling of sometimes talking too much & my internal dialogue going ‘me, me, me!’
Silence, or rather not talking and listening to nature and the sounds of the sea was blissful. Returning to the gatherings of the temporary community and doing more more listening than talking was lovely: I get more now out of hearing people’s beautiful stories rather than sharing my own.
I don’t know if my problems were solved by following Pascal’s dictum but I did return home feeling lit up inside…and with 11 ticks as a souvenir.
I took many pictures like the one at the top of the post. Sea thrift/sea pink has meant something to me from the first time I went on these wilderness retreats in 2013; I must have seen it many times before that, but that was the first time I really noticed it.
2013 and the following year were not great times: I felt ‘trapped’ in what I was doing and could not see a way out, despite a period of being signed off . The first sight of sea thrift gave me a huge lift: something beautiful was growing in a hard place and I took that as being an encouragement from the divine. My ideas of revelation have changed but I still take the truth of the line from Hamlet:-
‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in thy philosophy’
This time I was reminded of that first time on a wilderness retreat and I gave into the wonder and did not check myself: the sight of sea thrift sometimes made me gasp with joy and realise how different life is now. As the spiritual director I use would say, I’m more in a time of ‘consolation’ than desolation’. That doesn’t mean perfection or that there are no questions or threats- there are- but the place I’m in feels much better at the moment.
I also wrote some bad poetry about it, but bad poetry, creativity itself is better than none. Just don’t publish it or expect others to murmur with joy when you do.
I still don’t wild camp well; I’m so dependent on others with more experience and nous. The return to the mainland, whilst tinged with sadness, is also joyful with the promise of flushing toilets and warm showers.
I do like wilderness retreats though.
Wearily Hopeful 