The Longing to Seclude Oneself

Getting snowed in--though admittedly purposefully-- in a small, creekside, tree-canopied cottage, and getting to live out the most refreshing series of days in remembrance, will give one pause to ponder why being alone feels so good. [It's worth noting here that I'm not truly alone, being a married woman, though in time we have worked out how to be two existing solitudes when we wish, so I'll go on to refer to being alone as such.] Not just alone, but removed. There is a difference, since one can be "alone" in their apartment in a city. But to be alone and removed, outside the sphere even of mental influence of other minds for days on end, no longer feeling as a character on the anxious stage of the ever-unfolding human drama. 

I've loved, been accustomed to, solitude for most of my life- growing up as an only child who spent a great deal of her time alone in a blue-carpeted, blue-walled bedroom listening to Tool and watching the ceiling fan rotate to pass the afternoon, or gallivanting around the countryside hills and corn fields an entire Saturday, fixating on shapes of rocks and how red clay straight from the ground could be molded into bricks. This later morphed into seeking to live in far out, rural and secluded places, which finally took form early in my 20's and has continued since, now reaching a pinnacle of residing in a county twice the size of Rhode Island with not a single traffic light, in the rugged mountains of America's Inland Northwest, with only 3 people per square mile. Were it not for my family ties, I would go farther.

There is something very sacred in living one's life quietly, without calling attention, without being so easily accessible, and likewise unable to access the lives of others. In withdrawing, being alone, out away from the noise of human maneuverings, I find a connection with the transcendent, that is, with God and higher experiences, to be more easily within reach, more consistent, nearly tangible. One can fall into this current without any thought of being interrupted and, oh, the "places" that can be reached! The shedding of the vanity of daily life can be felt as a deep cleanse and purification. 

"The urge to withdraw has always been stronger in me than the urge to take part in the world in any way. People would often come, with what I deemed, vulgar and profane suggestions, that seemed not to address the core sentiment behind the urge to withdraw - and that is the sentiment that everything is vanity. Children, jobs, marriage, lovers - all a noise, a comfortable attachment to help one pass through existence." - Orphic Inscendence, Urge to Withdraw

 

In this life of mine, at this stage of it, I certainly don't feel bored, but I do feel a sense of... as Naida puts it, being aged. 

"I felt aged - like I've already seen it all, had hundreds of children and husbands and wives, like I've been a criminal, a priest, a queen, a prostitute, and there was nothing left for me to be anymore. All the roles seemed too familiar and already explored and lived. It wasn't nihilism that was behind the urge to withdraw - it was inability to see any evidence of my belief that there had to be more to life than dying with a stomach more full than you started with." - Orphic Inscendence, Urge to Withdraw

This feeling of familiarity, of having done it all already, reduces many of the human concerns and dramas into mediocrities, cultivating an indifference to participation. Feeling simply uninterested in it all, what is one to do but to retire to their own devices, far away, and to devote their life to that upward path, which is to God. Though I can't help feeling I've done that before too, still it feels right.

Agafia Lykov's existence is one I've long found inspiration in. Her family were one of many Old Believers who fled Russia in 1936, believing their religion to be under attack. They trekked deep into the wilds of Siberia, and this is where Agafia was born, in a hollowed out pine washtub. The family of six spent over forty years in isolation until they were discovered by a team of geologists in 1978, though at that point only a family of five as the mother, Akulina, had perished from starvation in 1961, sacrificing herself so the children might live. (You can learn more about this story as I did in the book Lost in the Taiga.) To this day, Agafia resides alone in the taiga, now age 77. All her life is an ascetic feat. 

The 2012 Austrian-German film The Wall (or- Die Wand) gives me pause for thought. In it, a woman visits friends at a hunting lodge in the Austrian Alps. Later, as her friends head into a nearby village leaving her alone with the dog, she soon finds that she's been cut off from the rest of the world by an invisible wall. Years of hardship, depression, and despair portray seclusion as a terror, but is her experience closer to the marrow of what this life is for? Certainly the comforts and social expectations of daily life were removed, but must this be so jarring? Is there not an opportunity there? Surely there is, and we catch glimpses of this throughout the film, such as in her second summer when she writes that her "newer self" seemed to be getting "absorbed into a greater whole."

But what I observe in life is that most people are not interested in solitude or silence or going inward much at all. I think this is because there is a noise to life- both external and internal, which we are very accustomed to hearing, and when those sounds dim, the void brings an anxiety. So solitude and asceticism go hand in hand, much like someone in a mode of crisis should not be told to meditate- the state of their mind at current is not a healthy place to linger. Maybe to enjoy solitude and to yearn for a far away natural setting as the canvas for ones life, certain preparations must first be made, of an internal kind. 

If we believe in the transmigration of souls, then it also follows that not every soul is ready for this approach to life, or is even in need of it yet. With this in mind, it's unrealistic for us to expect others to understand our longings for this worldly detachment and unconcern and for wanting to be far away, just as we cannot exist for long in their chosen environments without fatigue and dullness setting in. 

"Constant and unalloyed devotion to Me; aspiring to live in a solitary place; detachment from the general mass of people; … [ – all these I declare to be knowledge]." -- Bhagavad Gita, 13.11

 

In order for our inner territory to be interesting, introspective practices should be performed regularly- reading, seeking wisdom, yoga, meditation, writing, contemplation, and prayer, to name a few. And if you are reading this and feel similarly but have yet to make sense of it, might I suggest one place to begin is in watching this series, and taking time to reflect on the teachings therein, which might help you understand why you feel the way you do, longing to seclude from the world. There are good reasons for feeling this way, especially here in the Kali yuga.