Maria and I have left behind the sad and angry memories of our childhood holidays, we are making our own holiday, building a new tradition. Neither of us wants to be the kind of person constantly lamenting the past, complaining about others, or brooding about the unfortunate memories and excesses of the holidays.
Speaking only for me, I have to embrace the sacrament of letting go, moving forward, not looking back. Every day, there is the chance of building life anew.
We want to build something new as the intensity and din of the holidays begin – Black Friday is starting a week early, of course, you can buy tons of stuff you don’t need for less money than you would otherwise pay. I think that is the message of the holidays in America now.
Maria and I want our holidays to be something we can speak well and warmly about, something we build together, not something forced on us by the ideas and traditions of others. We don’t wish a holiday of obligation and ritual, but one that reflects us, our love, and our ambitions for our lives. My gift for her is to try to do everything I can to help build new and bright memories, and wash the old ones away.
The first step was today. I bought Maria her first gift of the holiday season. We are exchanging gifts on our own schedule, not necessary piling them up for Christmas Day. That is not a day of celebration for her. That will be a day of reflection and simplicity, as we both feel it ought to be. I have always honored Christmas, but in my own way and time. We seek new things to celebrate.
This gift was an afternoon of Silent Meditation and walking at Pompanuck Farm. I rented the beautiful Round House, built by my friend Scott Carrino, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The most beautiful forest came with the visit. I am happy to say also that hunting season began this week, nobody got shot, us or the dogs.
It’s curious but one can’t really do this kind of thing at home. There are chores, distractions, visitors, devices, obligations, messages, calls, animals, news. We spent the day in peace and connection at Pompanuck. We meditated in silence for 45 minutes, walked in the deep woods for more than an hour, had lunch, meditated again. Maria did some yoga, I listened to some music, we brought the dogs along, and even Fate entered into the spirit of our day, setting down for some quiet (mostly.)
For me, the afternoon was about honoring our love for each other and appreciating it. I was about seeking the liberation of solitude. In fact, that was the focus of our time: liberation from the past. Maria was seeking to liberate herself from the chains of the past.
I was seeking to experience the joy and love of solitude and quiet, so rare in all of our lives. And to do it with Maria, a human being with whom I am finally in sync. Being in quiet opens the way to the power of interior solitude, something I studied and learned in the writings of Thomas Merton and others for much of my life. He died some time ago, but his teachings could hardly be more relevant. It is easy to forget him in the rush of life, I will always reach out to him to come back.
“You will never find interior solitude,” Merton wrote, “unless you make some conscious effort to deliver yourself from the desires and cares and the interests of existence in time and in the world.
“Do everything you can to avoid the amusements and the noise and the business of men. Keep as far away as you can from the places where they gather to cheat and insult one another, to exploit one another, to laugh at one another, or to mock one another with their false gestures of friendship. Do not read their newspapers, if you can help it. Be glad if you can keep out of reach of their radios. Do not bother with their unearthly songs or their intolerable concerns for the way their bodies look and feel.”
Good guidance then, urgent guidance now.
It was a meaningful day in solitude and quiet, the woods were lovely, dark and deep, as the poet said. I don’t seek escape for its own sake, I don’t try and run away from the world because it can be ugly and unpleasant. I will not find peace and I will not find solitude that way.
I think I am looking for what Merton called the interior freedom, the profound sense of peace and safety that comes from loving being alone.
The truest solitude is not something that is outside of me, it isn’t the absence of people or noise or argument. It is an abyss that opens up in the center of your soul, and I can only find it in pure solitude and quiet. For me, it is in the loneliness that the spiritual life offers, and I ache for it and yearn for it. It is in the quiet that I discover action without notion, music without noise, labor that is peaceful repose, clear vision in confusion, and beyond all desire, a fulfillment whose limits extend beyond imagination.
It was a great opening to our holidays, I think it may be a Happy Thanksgiving and a Merry Christmas for both of us. It is a beautiful gift to give or receive.