I am at the Holy Trinity Monastery in St.
David, Arizona. It is raining, and the only sound is the gentle fall of
rain on leafless trees, droplets of water, little shining crystals on the dark
branches before my window.
And on the banister of the terrace before me are 5 peacocks
and peahens, their magnificent, extravagant, impossible iridescent tails
hanging over the edge. They are just sitting there, making no sounds. I
remember peacocks as noisy creatures, with a piercing cry. How strange those peacocks are, motionless,
silent. I know that if they become aware of me, they will run off, so I
join them in their silence for a moment, unmoving, aware of only peacocks, and
the sound of rain.
The Monastery is so quiet in fact, there are not even sounds
of sparrows or ravens, no dogs or coyotes. It is also mostly deserted, probably
because it is winter and mid-week. The land has the familiar peace I have
so often found in places of worship, a peace rising through the soil as one
walks, an essence of place stepped and pressed into the land itself. It
does not matter what I "believe" in such places.... prayerful or
sacred places are not about the intellect.
There is a striking statue of Saint Benedict by the
cloisters; he is holding a book, and there is a raven at his feet with, apparently,
a rock in his beak. * I do not know what the raven means, but the white statue
is welcoming. I find myself watching my breath as I walk, clasping my
hands behind my back. Maybe the monks who lived here did that, and I am
just picking up a memory in the land.
The Benedictine Monastery in the small eastern Arizona town
of St. David is actually no longer a Monastery, not since 2017 when the Vatican
recalled the few monks and Father still living here. It clearly once had a good-sized population that
gradually diminished. As I walk, I try to imagine monks here, tending to the
gardens, the shrines, the retreat buildings in the rain, or in the hot summers
of this part of the country. It is still managed by a faithful group of
volunteer Oblates. I notice that they are all elderly……I wonder if they
will be able to attract younger people in the future to manage this special
place? It seems, as I reflect with the meditative presence of the peacocks
before me, that it is a great shame that the monastic life is so little appreciated
in our frenetic world.
Last evening, as the sun went down behind rows of pecan
trees, I saw the flock of peacocks, some 20 of them, sitting on a fence before
a particularly ancient pecan tree. I watched as, one by one, they flew without
sound into the tree, finding their particular perches. Each bird seemed to wait patiently for his or
her own “take-off”. This was clearly a daily ritual. I was struck
by how orderly this procession of the peacocks to their nightly roost took
place.
Peacocks……… one thinks of them as loud, stupid birds. Yet at the St. David Monastery, where many
generations of peacocks have lived and roamed freely, they are a tribe going
about their business. Just as the Monastery is devoted to silence and
prayer, so they also seem to be. They are wrapped in brilliant shades of
quietude. Beautiful in their other
worldly iridescence among the gray and brown of winter leaves.
How did I end up here? Not entirely sure. By Grace?
As I was driving without a destination a day ago, I vividly
remembered a book I read (while spending the night on a bench in the
ultimate liminal zone of Heathrow Airport) called
“The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Frye”. ** The
central character, Harold, is in his 60’s, living a conservative retired life
with his wife. They do not really speak any more, as they navigate around
each other with many years of habitual co-inhabitation. One day Harold
receives a letter from someone he has not seen in over 20 years, someone who is
dying of cancer in a hospice far away to the north of the U.K. She has written to let Harold know she
remembers him fondly, and to say goodbye. In his habitual numbness, but equally
habitual English sense of propriety, he decides to write her a simple letter, a
card that says something like “thank you for your friendship, best wishes,
Harold Frye”. He does so, and then decides to walk to the post office in
order to mail it himself.
Except when he gets to the post office, he decides to walk
on to the next Post Office, one at the north of town, and mail it there.
And yet, when he gets to that post office, on the outskirts of town, he discovers
that he still has the letter in his pocket, and he is still walking. And so,
the unplanned and unannounced and even unconscious pilgrimage of Harold Frye commences.
Perhaps I am like Harold. I just decided I needed to
get away, from the Holidays, from Facebook, from cars, away from all the noise,
and the noise incessantly sounding in my own head, right now: but I had
no idea of where to go. None.
But I have a car, and a credit card. All the way down 22nd street
to the freeway, I still couldn’t decide where I was going…. west, to Phoenix,
maybe Sedona? A long way, and Sedona is expensive. Or south, to
Patagonia? Head to New Mexico, the solace of those wide-open mystical spaces….
even though it is an even longer way than Sedona? It was only when I got
to the freeway underpass that I pulled into the left lane for route 19, heading
in the direction of Patagonia, which at least had a bird sanctuary and a coffee
shop. I’d see what happened from there.
As I drove, I felt better. I turned my phone off.
In Patagonia I had a coffee, discovered that the only hotel (cleverly
cowboy vintage) was ridiculously
expensive, then thought what the heck, I’ll head to New Mexico, why not. The
mood I’m in I could drive all night anyway. The road from Patagonia
to I-10 is scenic, with a snow-covered mountain range in the distance. In
Saint David, a little town on the way to Benson, I remembered there was a
Benedictine Monastery. Always curious about it, I stopped, inquired about
retreats, and here I am. Ask and ye shall receive, truly.
Lately I’ve been having those winter-born (what a
wonderful word, “winterborne”) …… “dark nights of the soul” ………. which
look, practically speaking, more like being overwhelmed, brittle, snappish, and
exhausted and increasingly disturbed by it. I am running a successful AIRBNB
“enclave”, still working thus in the “service industry” at the age of 72.
I have to work and know few who can afford not to these days.
I am glad sometimes that no one much notices me, or my current inner landscape.
To me, of late, everything sounds like “yap yap yap”. Sometimes I feel
like contemporary life is a bit like being endlessly barked at by a chihuahua.
Our modern world - an entire fleet of chihuahuas. A demanding litany of
inconsequential complaint, vented commentary, monologue for the sake of attention,
appeals for money, offers for deals, electronic voices, irritated
drivers……exhausting. And, as I am an empath, all the human pain in there too,
all the loneliness and fear and despair and grief and human pain I can’t help, and
increasingly feel too frayed to listen to.
When I’m not “in service” changing sheets or scrubbing
floors, I am an artist. (Yes, one can
be an “emerged” artist and not wealthy.
In fact, most artists have to find other means of support.) The
artifacts of that 50-year career surround my property. I have to say, running an AIRBNB has been
somewhat deflating, as I have noticed that most people don’t think about art
unless it is in a museum or a gallery. Or now, I suppose, on
Instagram. Instant art for an increasingly microscopic attention span!
For myself, art is a language, albeit an often-archaic
language, one that one has to be educated in, like learning to speak Latin.
Certainly, it requires what our lives increasingly lack ......contemplation. Patience. Without that introduction, and time, artworks
are just a backdrop that ‘specialists’ understand, dismissed as
irrelevant.
Or a colorful passing tidbit to consume like a candy.
People do not see that a painting is a conversation, a
window into another world……in this case, my world. For me, the works have
numinous names and places in the landscape of my life. The bodies
of work on my property are the best of me, my personal shrines and devotions,
and now I just want to protect them from the infidels, so to speak.
If they don’t see it, it is safe, and those visionary depths
the paintings and sculptures arose from (in me) are also underground. Even if they are in plain sight.
How do I feel about all of this? I often question my discontent; I am often
despairing of contemporary life. Yet
here, in a monastery where many came to seek God........it doesn’t matter
whether I am “right” or “wrong” in my discontent. It doesn’t matter what I think at all.
I sit on a bench and listen to the melancholy voice of
Saturn. Wise and winter-borne Saturn.
I contemplate a cast-off, brightly turquoise, feather on the
ground, gleaming as it catches a bit of sun.
Here I am, enjoying this pentimento under the surface of time, given the
grace and simplicity to turn under, within, below the fallen leaves, into the
dark. It occurs to me that it does not
matter at all what I “think” I should do once I rejoin the noise and
distractions of life. Here is refuge, here is the power of silence. Silence enough to listen, and my soul, for
lack of a better word, is speaking.
“When
we are living in accord with our inner reality while simultaneously suffering
the depredations of this discordant, dis-eased world, we nonetheless have
supportive energy, clarifying affects, and a sense of purpose. When we
get off track, these same manifestations turn against us. While the world
rushes to pharmacology to numb the inner discord, the question remaining is
simply and obviously this: What does the soul want, as
opposed to our protective but regressive complexes? This simple question
is intimidating because such an agenda can very quickly lead to the larger
rather than the smaller in our lives, necessarily re-framing our sense of what
our life journey is about.”
James Hollis PhD. “Living an Examined Life”
As the Winter Solstice approaches, I bless the Dark, the
nourishment that comes from this time of incubational dormancy, from quietude. I am grateful to have stumbled into welcoming
refuge for a few days. To sit listening
to the rain and privileged to join the silent, watchful witness of a great
iridescent beauty that sits on a fence before me, waiting to be noticed, listening
to the rain.
