Wild and Raw
When you live in a wild place, you should expect that wild things will occasionally happen. That seems obvious, but it’s sometimes easy for me to forget that I live in such a land. I also sometimes forget that I live in a sacred place, considered so by the monks here at the hermitage as well as the ancestral Esselen Native Americans that roamed these lands long ago.
The Camaldolese monks are fairly new to the area, having arrived from Italy in 1958. The Esselen peoples, however, truly date back to ancient history: until recently, they were believed to have arrived here around 2600 BC, but recent carbon dating of their artifacts show that they lived here prior to 6,500 years ago. I mean, the ancient Egyptians weren’t even around back then!
Above the hermitage, in a wooded area away from any paths, there is a large rock that bears evidence of these ancient Esselen tribes. Mortar and pestle once worked by human hands long since forgotten offer ghostly witness to their one time presence. This rock that once held natives of the land so many millennia ago and now holds me as I sit on it, must also bear many secrets…must have witnessed many phases of human occupation that, one by one, slowly faded into the mulch of the forest floor.
The Esselen left hand prints on many rock faces in the land of the Big Sur. The legend says that they believed rocks held memory, so that when they placed their hand in a carving of a hand print on a rock they could tune into everything that ever happened at that place.
Sitting on this rock, I take a pestle in hand and imagine what life might have been like for them. My mind’s eye sees through the mist of time: struggles, triumphs, loves, deaths, longings, spirituality, gossip, laughter, tears. Perhaps many of the very things that I experience now. The legend is true! We humans, ancient and modern, do have more in common than we think.
Now, hermit monks care-take this land once held by the Esselen peoples. Like the Esselen, these hermits consider the land sacred and powerful.
The forces of spirit and nature conjoin here to create something rarely found in the rest of the world. Something watchful almost, and healing. But something wild. In a moment it can make you gasp at a sunset, or run from a massive forest fire, or witness a fog lifting to reveal misty coastline, or cower before a winter storm raging its wet and windy breath onto the trembling lands. The monks and staff at the hermitage have seen it before and will see it again. So far, like many of the trees on these mountains, they have learned to bend but not break. So far.
The raw, powerful nature of this land evokes a cleansing of one’s inner being, if you can manage the sight of your true self. There is no hiding from your secrets here; She will bring them all out for you to see. Some folks stay and evolve from this; others cannot bear it and run away. I’ve told my secrets to the mountains, to the redwood trees, to the owls, to the monks. All have received them solemnly and graciously.
We all have secrets even monks have secrets and you gotta tell somebody or they just get too heavy. Up in the mountains your secrets get covered in lichen and moss and granite pebbles and they just become part of dear Mother Earth. Where they belong. I hike in heavy and I hike out light.
One time I gave the redwoods my secret crush I had on a lady I worked with years ago at Amazon. This circle of giant, wise trees took that crush amongst them, whispering it and letting it seep into their fragrant green needles and into their tree blood and down into their roots. I knew it would be safe there. I shall leave it for them to work into the earth and, one day, to bring back up into their leaves and recycle it into the mountain air. That air will work its way to her lips eventually and she will breathe it in, knowing someone loves her. Who that someone may be is not important. At least that is what the trees told me.
Going to confession where you work, with monks you live with, is a thing that was weird at first for me (and still is a little bit). Confession in and of itself seems strange to a lot of non-Catholics; why would you need to confess your sins, your heavy secrets, to a stranger? Isn’t confessing to God good enough?
To me, this goes back to holding your secrets inside; you need to release them somehow or they’ll weigh you down. There is something powerful about sharing the weight of a dark sin or secret with another human being, especially one who by the very nature of their vocation is empowered to receive and forgive those sins. I find this phenomenon outside of Catholicism also, such as the 4th and 5th steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12 step programs.
Suddenly a burden is shifted from one pair of shoulders to two. Another human hears your shame and fear and accepts them and you. Redemption.
This last Friday Br. Emmanuel was buried in the cemetery behind our chapel, where many of his brothers have been laid to rest before him. I walked by as some of our staff dug the grave, and it was a surreal feeling. Seeing that hole in the ground, and the coffin made to disintegrate into the earth after time, as his body was made to do, put a stamp of finality onto his life here on earth. It was a sad but also solemnly joyful ritual that we have performed routinely over the decades.
This is a raw but natural thing of life here at the hermitage and Big Sur in general: we bury our own dead. Bearing witness to this, and handling Br. Emmanuel’s body with respect and loving honor, is part of that duty. “Where you go, I too shall one day pass”. Br. Emmanuel believed that physical death was not the end, but the beginning. He said this to one of his visitors as he lay dying in the hospital: “I’ll see you in heaven”.
See you in heaven, Emmanuel.
Some final memories of Brother Emmanuel, related by Fr. Isaiah:
- Once he was working in a wet ditch and emerged covered with mud. He said, “Good thing God is everywhere”.
- Once at the beginning of one of my retreats, he and Fr. Zacchaeus came to my private mass. Zacchaeus prayed that I be ‘set on fire by the Holy Spirit’ during my retreat. Br. Emmanuel added, “If he comes out of his cell on fire, don’t put him out”.
- There was a Christmas lunch when we were all given paper crowns to wear. Someone said to Emmanuel, “Hi, King”. He replied, “Hi, King… how’s your half of the empire doin?”
- We had a dog named Buddy that Emmanuel was especially fond of…he’d give Buddy rides in the bucket of his skip loader. One time Fr. Cyprian was coming down for Vigils and there was a beautiful full moon. He ran into Emmanuel who said, “Wish I could put the moon in a box and give it to Buddy”.
- Brother Emmanuel had a unique way of joining in the public prayer petitions at Lauds and Vespers. People loved to hear him chip in, and sometimes it really got our attention. Here are some memorable ones…
- “Today oil poured out of the generator and all over the floor. In thanksgiving this didn’t happen at 2 a.m.”
- “We had 10 inches of rain today. Former record is 6 inches. We pray to the Lord”.
- “Help me to live cheerfully today, because God loves a cheerful giver”.
- “For Br. Gabriel… I don’t know where he is. I went looking for him this morning and he wasn’t there”.
- “Thank God for this day and all the ways we failed and made mistakes”.
After a solemn procession to the cemetery, Br. Emmanuel piped up, “Who’s going to dig my grave when I die? I dug all these graves mahself”.
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