We spent some hours in silent meditation today at the Round House at Pompanuck Farm. I understand that physical solitude, exterior silence real introspection are all necessary for anyone who wants to live a contemplative life or learn to love solitude, which is, for me, the equivalent of loving myself, and then others.

I also know that like everything else of meaning in the world, those things are nothing more than a means to an end, in and of themselves they  can be empty gestures.

In the room, the dogs were our meditative partners, even crazy-busy Fate seemed to sense the meaning of the day, she settled into a restful silence, she honored the work of the time. Red was born a contemplative, he can be still for hours and hours.

I asked myself what I was looking for in solitude? Maria was clear, she was seeking help in liberating herself from the past, in building new traditions and memories for herself. Thomas Merton wrote that we do not go into the desert to escape people but to learn how to find them; we do not leave them in order to have nothing more to do with them, but to find out the way to do them – and us – the most good.

Merton was seeking a love of God in his solitude, I am seeking something different: connection and community, the true and genuine love of other people. Merton avoided the news of the outside world, but in our time, we really can’t, unless we live in lead-sealed caves.

We are drowning in news of the outside world, gagging on it. So I am seeking to learn how to love myself, and then how to find love and understanding for other people. There are plenty of people willing to be angry and cruel in the world, I prefer to find something else, I cherish a contemplative life, it begins with the love of solitude.