Two Retreats. Part One: A Three Week Solo Retreat at Temenos
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Temenos, Shutesbury, Massachusetts, U.S.A., March 2001
All of the large storage cupboards in the cabin I have just moved into have been stuffed floor to ceiling with kindling for the wood-burning stove. The previous retreatant has cut it during his 100 day stay here. A gift, if only he had left some space for my things. Oh well, the floor will have to do.
Snow continues to fall, adding to the several feet already on the ground. I go out in it several times a day to draw water from the well, use the outdoor toilet, get logs for the stove, and just to walk.
Apart from the caretaker who lives through the woods I am alone in my cabin on a small mountain, my husband three hours’ drive away. The amount of snow alarms me, fueling a growing terror that I am abandoned here without hope of rescue. My food will run out, my husband unable to reach me when my three weeks are up. It is familiar to me and, in one form or another, to many others when on retreat. May be the car won’t start when they’re ready to go home, or something dreadful has happened to a loved one. What is going on here?
Days dark with cloud, snow, high winds, sometimes rain: “Why am I doing this?” Sometimes comes the response, “Who is it that complains?” Birds, chipmunks, ground squirrels don’t complain as they go about their daily business, and Zen Master Seung Sahn said “Don’t make good or bad. Everything in the universe is your good friend.” Nevertheless…
How to maintain this retreat when there is so much more solitude than I had ever imagined? The answer is to follow the daily schedule and focus only on the requirements of each moment. How is it right now?
The emphasis on chanting and prostrations is designed to provide the necessary energy, grounding, and focus. When I chant my voice sounds calm and strong. Closing my eyes I focus on this, not on the small, scared person of my fears. Bird song from outside fills the spaces between words, creating a continuous flow of sound. Repeated high, sharp bird sound penetrates and merges. Stillness. Behind the clouds there is a mountain.
One day I hike down to the nearest road so that I can see if it has been cleared of snow. Maybe I can hitch a ride out of here. But after a few moments gazing at the black tarmac I realize that the road to freedom is up the mountain and I turn back.
As I settle into stillness the unbidden voices in my head sound louder. At meals: “C’mon luv, eat up yer rice (pause) yes, well I know you had it yesterday, but it’s brown rice, luv, it’s good for yer.” Or outside: “snow knife” (sun-warmed twig sinking slowly in deep snow); “It’s the snow that’s high, not the branch that’s low.”
Silence, night time. Kerosene lamp casting flickery shadows. I sit in meditation, steady mantra, steady breathing. Then screams coming closer, fast. The door has no lock. Oh no! A party of drunken kids rioting up the mountainside! Closer, closer…Then, gliding past my window, a screech owl. Oh yes, now I remember: the mind makes everything!
This morning I am the only human on the mountain and, when I stop crunching through the snow, the only sound is the whoosh of blood in my ears. The hemlocks are teaching: their supple branches bend to the ground under the weight of snow and are anchored there. They bow unbroken until released by snow’s melt.
