hermit's thatch

Amish and “plain” Quakers are representative of what one observer (referring to Catholic religious orders, however) calls “corporate solitude.” The Amish and plain Quakers form a society in the corporate sense but practice “solitude” or voluntary social disengagement in the larger context of the country in which they reside. The content of their religious beliefs is both a source of internal cohesion and external separation. However, this disengagement is viable not only because of the sectarian beliefs that separate the groups from the mainstream (physical way of life, rejection of state authority) but also because of the presumed tolerance of the society around them. This is the same factor that has been the bane of hermits and eremites throughout history and throughout the world: the attitude of others not embracing their vision of life. The ideal has always been to find not only tolerance or even acceptance but a positive attitude from the larger society, as in traditional Hindu India or ancient China or desert Egypt. In the case of the Amish and plain Quakers, perhaps no successful equivalent exists in history, but the sense of tolerance from the larger society is a necessary and tenuous element in their successful “solitude.”

Some years ago, media told us about hikikomori, the extreme social withdrawal among young (and not so young) males in Japan. Their behavior — not coming out of their rooms or going out — both frightens and embarrasses their parents. But at least hikikomori is considered of social and economic as much as strictly psychological factors. In this sense it is not unique to Japan or to males.
On personal and community blogs, agoraphobia and other phobias are freely acknowledged by participants, and they want to share honestly feelings and support. Phobias and hikikomori may have as much to do with positive alienation (a la R. D. Laing) from a corrupt, aimless, and amoral culture. What Sartre’s “Nausea” title suggested for a previous generation. In this frame of mind, there often seems a potential to follow an authentic life of simplicity as much as any evidence of what society may label as mental disease. The desert fathers, the sadhus of India, the Japanese mendicant-poet hermits, the Chinese mountain hermits and so many other eremites all may have shared this sort of positive alienation and a touch of universal insight … a touch of what has been boxed into the labels of hikikomori and agoraphobia.

A frog occupies the old plastic rain gauge by the gate. The rain gauge is a faded translucent yellow, cracked at a point where rain never reaches anyway, hung on a rusty nail and nearly forgotten. But something at the top opening of the gauge caught our attention one dusk while returning from a walk. The frog sat at the top, surveying the approaching night. During warm days he abandons the gauge and hides himself elsewhere, but on cooler days he sits at the bottom, relatively safe, dreaming of night and wondering if it will rain a little to make his new cell that much more comfortable.

In the garden, a winged shadow passes over me and ripples low over the ground, the trees, and beyond. Vultures are not unusual or even unwelcome, often appearing overhead daily or several times a day. Such an enormous shadow would have given rise to fear and horror in past ages, and may still today. But the vulture is exempted by its pleasing flight, floating expertly on the slightest current with a minimum of effort. Nor should the vulture’s habits be a source of human disgust. Feeding vultures often remind me of a human banquet table, animal parts splayed about, torn and consumed greedily. Every creature has its place. None needs justification. It is, rather, for we humans — with our power, fears, and horrors — to understand all creatures, even while wondering what our own place is in the scheme of sentient beings.

An hour into morning and the full moon is a sad relic, a pasty disc barely adhering to the sky, disappearing. Where the stars are discrete and hide themselves away quickly, the moon lingers, embarrassing itself. Perhaps it cannot leave the stage, hoping for an encore. Perhaps there is still one more line to deliver, a line we did not know of and why we grow chagrined. Unable to form the words, the moon just lingers. With morning we salute the sun and, anticipating the new day, are grateful to have it. But for the moon we must be sad, though we are grateful to have had it.

The full moon at night illuminates the trees and makes phosphorescent plants and ground cover. I awaken at night from the moonlight streaming through an uncurtained window. How many sentiments has moonlight evoked in poets and composers over the ages. For this moment, however, utter silence is sufficient evocation. No analogies need substitute for reality. The finger pointing at the moon is gone. The moon watcher, too, is irrelevant.

A paradox of power is that while the hermit renounces power, the oppressed and exploited of the world might well seek power in order to redress their plight. Is it mocking their plight to counsel the renunciation of power? Some commentators have maintained that only those who would give up power are worthy to accept it. Plato wanted only philosophers as kings. Ashoka of India affected his generation but Marcus Aurelius could not. The Chinese tradition breaks through the Gordian knot — for some: serve the king when good, renounce and recluse when evil. For Confucius this was an on-going dilemma, but for Chuang-tzu there was no doubt whether the the king (i.e., the powerful) was good or not. The oppressed and exploited of the world know better than many that the renunciation of power is indeed the beginning of the resolution. But they do not seek power. Rather, they would want the powerful to renounce power on behalf of all of us.

For some weeks, the little female cardinal had flown about the eave feeders with great familiarity, but one day it flew violently against a window pane and died. The neck was broken instantly from the terrible thud. A moment before so vibrant and attentive: sleek gray wings streaked with red, bright clean beak of orange-yellow, clever darting eyes sensing everything — now all stilled. In death one could hold the little bird as one could not in life. Its tiny eyes were closed, its wings pulled close, legs dangling, warmth still glowing like fading embers in a hearth. We buried it where a fellow bird had struck a pane sometime ago (now the panes have spider web decals), buried next to a single daisy that blooms as it will throughout the seasons, sometimes in two flowers. Returning to the house a cardinal chirped and fluttered, perhaps looking for its mate, its friend, its sister. May it be solaced, and may it sing the dawn and dusk, saluting the short and beautiful life that is the fate of all of us.

Not just cynical and worldly people but average people conforming to society’s conventions shake their heads at the idea of eremitism. Both sets of people will argue that “experiencing the world” is the only normal course, living fully or living purposefully, as the case may be. Their argument is based on experiencing power in one form or another, whether on a throne or in a household, whether exercising it or accepting it as normal. The hermit may well have experienced the world, too, but has one experience that the powerful and the conventional do not: rejecting power, rejecting the necessity of “experiencing the world.” The hermit can and does experience the world as “not this, not that:” no particular form of empowerment but a going past the illusions of power and society, of impermanence and futility. The hermit (and the archetype “hermit” is within all of us) can recognize and experience an independence as well as an interdependence that relies on no one “thing.” No particular demand or emotion or experience. No demand for power. The hermit knows that to reach this point is a solitary journey. And no amount of worldly power or conventional experiences will get one there.

Throughout history, note David Weeks and Jamie James, authors of Eccentrics: a Study of Sanity and Strangeness, reclusive women have been labeled agoraphobic, but the authors’ survey of contemporaries suggests withdrawal from society as a choice not a phobia. Reclusive women pointed out to the authors that a double standard prevails, wherein reclusiveness is more socially acceptable of men than of women. One woman — an artist — remarked:

People think that just because I’m a woman, I must be caring, nurturing, and “people-oriented.” They just can’t believe that I prefer my own company. They don’t realize that my happiest times are when I’m alone with my painting and music. … I don’t think that male artists are quizzed so much about their social lives. People respect their need for solitude. When a male artist says he wants to shut himself off and create, they say he’s serious about his work. When I do it, I’m either being selfish or I have a psychological problem.