Category: Solitude

The Weight of a Name

On By ednafroeseIn Names, reflection, Respect, Silence, SolitudeLeave a comment
close-up photo of mountain rocks and tiny alpine flowers, mostly moss campion.

            The language of stones is silence. Flowers likewise keep their own counsel. There are exceptions: dried flowers rustle in the wind; live flowers attract choruses of bees happy in their pursuit of nectar. Stones can raise a mighty ruckus if gravity moves them. No one who has watched a rock avalanche in the Rockies (as we have) can forget the almighty roar of stones tumbling down hundreds of feet in search of a level surface on which to take up a new habitation.

A view of Mt. Edith Cavell in Jasper National Park, just as an avalanche is finishing.
Mountain buttercups against a dark background.

 These days I’m lonely for both stones and flowers, the landscape where I live being covered in feet of snow—which is also silent, unless hurled forward by wind, in which case it is the wind we hear, not the snow, or unless the temperature is low enough that snow squeaks beneath our boots.  

            Public discourse, by definition never silent (exceptions there also, of course, for sign language and body language), has taken on an edge in the last years that makes me long for hours spent outdoors, in silence, never mind the weather (and as I write, the wind chill on the other side of the window is – 47 C). So much could be said about how the public square functions these days. To be briefly facetious here, it’s not really a public square anymore at all but private glowing rectangles on which the shouting happens. I am not qualified—as if that matters much these days—to weigh in on momentous policy decisions; I will leave that to those with a higher pay grade and preferably some expertise.

 All I want to draw attention to is one seemingly insignificant, yet dismayingly common, tactic of signifying disapproval of an opponent: the twisting of names. That phrasing is actually too kind a label for the practice of using names as weapons. The intent is not actually to signify disapproval but to humiliate and destroy. What is actually signalled is the self-claimed superiority of the one who renames.

Nicknames, we used to call those miserable refusals to use a child’s given name. Who has not heard the horrible epithets created by playground bullies? Fatso, Lard Guts, Skinny, Rat Face, Four Eyes, Stinky. The insults are legion, almost always focused on what the hapless victim cannot change – race, appearance, disabilities. Memories of verbal bullying are hard to erase, as I can testify. 

 Nicknames can also be affectionate, within families, among close friends, between lovers. Pet names we call those tender labels. Which seems revealing on its own. There’s just a hint of ownership implied by “pet.” The act of naming is an act of power, a dynamic that becomes evident when the wearer of the nickname chooses to resist it. For a child who is growing up and wishes to leave the “pet name” behind, the continued usage of the name begins to feel like an insult. The line between affection and aggression can be thin.

            Human beings seem always to have known that naming is somewhat akin to magic. The Book of Genesis includes as part of the creation accounts the story of Adam naming all the animals, having been asked by God to do so. It seems a clear indication of greater intelligence in humans and thus also the responsibility of caretaking, a relationship that can be abused. Parents name their children, sensing at some level that they are conferring on this new little human an individuality, a personhood. That is most often a gracious naming, which in some cultures is also a powerful recognition of ancestors, a continuation of family traditions, even an accolade for some valuable characteristic.

 Colonialism was less gracious: over and over again, conquerors have renamed landscape features in an act of appropriation, declaring their ownership. Sometimes the original people, now without power, have also been renamed, sometimes to spare the conquerors the trouble of learning names in an unfamiliar language, sometimes as a deliberate effort to obliterate old traditions and familial ties. Brian Friel, an Irish playwright, in Translations, depicts the English practice of renaming and mapping Irish land as an act of dominance.  One of the characters eventually asks the obvious question: if all the place names are changed into another language, will the villagers still know where they are? Indeed, will they know who they are? Names matter.

 Given that long human history of naming as a weapon of power, we should probably not be surprised that the current political scene has been corrupted by childish nicknames. Whatever one may say about President Donald Trump (and I have little desire to begin a larger conversation), he has had frightening success in demeaning opponents through his bullying tactic of creating mean nicknames. I will spare my readers the pain of having to read a long list of such nicknames. If you follow the news at all, you will already know them. None of those names should live on, whether they were hurled at worthy men and women or at former “friends” of Trump’s as complicit in criminality as he is. I am particularly troubled by the seeming increase of a similar use of demeaning names in Canadian political conversations.

            From hereon, my voting decisions will be strongly influenced by political candidates’ use of names, and slogans, as a weapon. Never having held membership in any political party, I have made my choices primarily on the basis of individual candidates’ qualifications for office, with some consideration given to their party leaders. The character of the individual who will represent me in parliament matters as much as the policies advocated. If someone is willing to use demeaning labels against an opponent, I will interpret that as a serious character blemish, a disqualifying one. That is a failure to show respect to another human being.

 It is not a coincidence that the world’s main religions all call for respect to all human beings, and include some version of the Golden Rule, which asks us simply to offer all others the same dignity that we would wish to receive ourselves. One measure of that equalizing respect is to call each individual by his/her chosen name, or earned title. While such a courtesy would not, all by itself, undo extreme and unkind partisanship, it would be a step toward greater civility and hopefully also a movement toward more reasoned discussion of policy rather than a competition of personal attacks against opponents.

            I return to the stones and flowers that enrich my world. Their silence and their beauty soothe my spirit.

Could we perhaps improve the governance of our various countries by making it an inflexible rule that all would-be leaders spend 4 weeks in some lonely, isolated place outdoors?

Photo taken in Alberta Badlands, in Dinosaur Provincial Park.

A desert would do, so would a backwoods spot in the mountains, even a northern forested island. No aides allowed, no party officials, no team of caterers, no cell phones or laptops, no more than one book, preferably a blank journal, no trappings of power. Just one Indigenous elder who knows the land well whose periodic visits would make sure that actual starvation or major illness didn’t occur. At the very least, such a measure would open up space for undisturbed contemplation of the responsibilities of the desired governmental position and would remind our would-be dictators that they are, in the larger scheme of things, actually quite small and dependent.

Lone figure on a hill in Cyprus National Park, Saskatchewan
Solitary figure on high rock silhouetted against the sky in the Canadian Rockies.

Prolonged silence and solitude has a way of leading us inward. There is no name for that.

Grounded

On By ednafroeseIn Beauty, Life, reflection, Solitude, spiritualityLeave a comment

“It turns out that groundedness requires actual ground.” (Jenny Odell)

            The words startled me. “Being grounded” is such a common phrase, often used vaguely with feel-good associations, although it still means generally good sense and balance. Odell’s abrupt return to literalness jolted that worn out metaphor straight back to its original earthiness, which then prompted me to consider what kind of ground I personally required for being “grounded.”

Two kinds of ground, I concluded: one was dirt itself, dirt on my hands, on my knees, underneath my fingernails, as I tended the plants I loved. That dirtiness I shall return to sometime in another posting. The other ground is less immediate – quite distant, in fact. It depends on sight rather than touch. I need to see a long, long way, toward the far horizon, where the earth gently touches sky. Then my very self is reduced to smallness even as I stand anchored on the ground beneath my feet.  

View of the ocean in Victoria, BC. Overcast sky with late afternoon colors.

The connection to the first kind of grounding—dirt—I have long understood as vital to my well-being. I am a gardener and gardening is not optional. The second kind of grounding—a move into mystery through infinite expansion of view—I have also always loved but not understood as being, simultaneously, a solidness of footing, as much emotional as physical. The first is a function of doing, which lures the soul into forgetfulness through the simple and absorbing tasks of touching. The second is a function of being, in which the self disappears into pure perception.

 There are landscapes that feel like home, and landscapes that are foreign. Born and raised on the prairies, I am not naturally akin to the ocean. I own cross-country skis and hiking boots, not the accoutrements of living next to water (canoes, boats, sails, life jackets, anchors). While I have canoed, a little, and ridden in the occasional boat and on a ferry, I remain a tourist by the sea, not a native. Walking on a beach feels exotic. It’s an adventure, not a home-coming.

Yet the distant horizon slows my breath and steadies me. It is beautiful – that insubstantial meeting of air and water. I cannot gauge distance. Who I am matters nothing; I am infinitely small. Except that I remain the still point of perspective. My feet stand on ground, sand, rock. The foundation is there, and from that foundation all human endeavour is exposed as temporal, conditional, while both rock and sand – and water – are forever.

Mostly sky with brown prairie hills.

            Fortunately for me, the actual ground required for emotional and spiritual grounding does not have to be at the edge of a body of water. Prairie landscapes, in which I am at home, also offer magnificent distance, a forever postponed horizon. Accompanied so often by equally endless wind that blows trivial concerns out of mind and heart, the untouched prairie offers a different kind of solidity that pays no heed to individual ego. I am small here as well, and perhaps even more vulnerable. There’s no place to hide. But then also no need to hide. Blessedly, my various identities and loyalties matter little against an overwhelming awareness of Otherness.

More than ever, I know that I belong to Earth. I am human, I am fallible. Though I stand alone in the moment, I know that I am not alone. My smallness is not demeaning; it is humbling and comforting all at the same time. 

Harney Peak in South Dakota. Many smaller mountains in the distance, in a bluish haze.

            There is a third landscape through which expanded horizons foster inner balance. It does require a definite physical commitment and an immediate experience of several kinds of literal ground along the way. Truth be told, this is the one that speaks most intimately to my heart. To stand at the top of a mountain pass, from which the eye can see across miles and miles of rock and soil, is to know oneself insignificant yet joyfully exultant in that diminishment. The very air one breathes is thin, and the line between the earthly and the heavenly no longer discernible.

            [Can pettiness and cruelty and selfishness stand against so much beauty? I wonder, could we require all politicians seeking office to spend two weeks living on actual ground and surviving on limited rations? Two weeks is probably not nearly enough but it could be a beginning. And I’m not sure if those two weeks should be spent in complete solitude or accompanied by an appropriate guide. Perhaps two weeks of each? Repeated regularly throughout the term of office?]

 Lest you be tempted to think that the view of the ocean from the penthouse suite would do just as well and require little effort or that the view of the mountains can be achieved from an airplane window or an abominable skywalk thrusting itself where it has no business to be, let me clarify: the ground beneath your feet is not optional.

Trail on Mt. Revelstoke in BC. The slope is rocky and a lone figure stands on the trail silhouetted against the sky, with more mountains in the distance.

 The power of the seascape is strengthened by the pebbles your fingers caress after your bum has wriggled into a comfy place on the sand. The vast prairie sky demands also the prickly grass underfoot and the whirring grasshoppers that fling themselves against your legs. Any soul-ish benefit the vista of the mountains might offer happens only after your boots first found balance on many rocks and tree roots. Let there be no glass and brick between you and the scents of the scene. If you would be grounded, the majesty of far-seeing cannot be turned into a saleable “view.”

Another photo of the beach in Victoria, BC. This time more of the beach is visible with plenty of driftwood.

            Groundedness requires actual ground – always.

The Solace of Solitude and Silence

On By ednafroeseIn Beauty, memories, Mountains, SolitudeLeave a comment
Photo of Lake Annette with evergreen branches in the foreground. Reflection in the lake is perfect.

            Some places mysteriously become part of the structure of the heart, as much as valves and arteries and veins, though undetectable by ECGs. Jasper, Alberta, at first just a pretty place to work for the summer and make money off generous tourists, turned into a heart dwelling before I understood what had happened.

Lake Annette, in the photo above, was definitely part of that process. Even on my first day in Jasper, as I sorted out what my job was going to be and where I was going to live, I felt wrapped around by the beauty of the mountains. My heart had been wooed already in childhood when I had traveled once or twice through the Rockies. Now, in my first young adult adventures away from home, I found more than grandeur or adventure.

Slowly but surely the quality of silence inherent in the rough gathering of stone and water and pine and spruce drew me in, offering a solitude of soul I think I’d been longing for all along. Oh, I hiked with friends and explored the trails and lesser lakes around Jasper; we borrowed bicycles and rejoiced in our developing stamina; we swung gently on the playground swings in evenings off and watched the sun disappear in a way that it never did on the prairies.

 Much as I loved sharing all these moments with friends, and then with a boyfriend, I treasured the times of aloneness when I belonged to the landscape and to myself. Expectations gone. Fearfulness dismissed. I was learning how to breathe and be. To smile and to be happy. Ach, that word is over-used and inadequate here. I was exalted, exultant.

            I took the photo above just a few years ago, at the tail end of a road trip in the last days of summer. I had retired by then, metaphorically speaking also in the last days of summer, becoming mellower, less driven, more practiced in the art of resting in silence, never imagining then how important that art would be in the summer of 2023.  

We visited Lake Annette again last summer, in 2022. Jasper is, thank God, still a small mountain town. Still dependent on tourists and skiers and hikers, but not over-developed and commercialized past the point of help. The mighty Athabasca River and the surrounding mountains have limited the growth of the town to where it is now and has been for decades. There are signs enough of wealth and privilege, but the hiking trails remain accessible to all, never mind how expensive or ratty the boots of the hikers may be. The campgrounds now boast more massive RVs than simple backpacker tents, but there are still plenty of those tents, with bicycles nearby.

Many of my once favorite trails are now too busy for my liking (the Valley of Five Lakes is practically standing room only on a lovely summer day), yet there are still reflection-perfect ponds near half-forgotten trails where crowds of marsh marigolds celebrate in joy and the shyer wood lilies lurk in shade. There is also plenty of space along the rocky edge of the river where one may be alone to meditate and turn over small stones in the hand. Hours pass unnoticed while inner voices go quiet against the immortal voice of the river. 

Photo of the Athabasca River, focus on the rocky edge of the river.

In this summer when all travel became impossible for me, let alone the usual stay in the Rockies, I have needed all the fortitude I could muster to practice contentment with much solitude indoors. However, that mysterious grace in the universe that drops the right book off the shelf into hands that had expected nothing is still at work. Anam Cara by John O’Donohue had been given to me by a dear friend decades ago. I think I read it then; I don’t remember if I finished it. I was probably not ready for its Celtic mysticism. Now, after having sat, practically invisible, on my bookshelf for who knows how many years, it demanded to be read.

And read it I did. With increasing interest and pen in hand for underlining. I am grateful, if not quite grateful enough yet to bless the weeks and weeks of enforced bed rest that led me to pick up Anam Cara. The section titled “Aging: An Invitation to New Solitude” might once have terrified me. Now, flat in bed for more hours in the day than I once would have thought endurable, I could read this without being frightened: “A new quietness settles on the outer frame of your active life, on the work that you have done, the family that you have raised, and the role that you have played. Your life takes on a greater stillness and solitude.”  I doubt that O’Donohue was thinking of the kind of enforced stillness that I was enduring.

Nevertheless, I could see his point that we often “miss out on the great treasures of our lives because we are so restless. In our minds we are always elsewhere. We are seldom in the place where we stand [or we lie!] and in the time that is now.” Between the regrets over the past and the worries of the future, O’Donohue observes, we have little energy left for savoring what is in front of us.

I’m inclined to counter with an argument that we find our meaning in life through learning to recognize divine guidance in the past and setting our goals for the future. There is a time and place for revisiting past mistakes and offering apologies, for instance, just as there is a time and place for resolving to do better in the future and even making promises that can’t be fulfilled in the now.

As always, a single viewpoint doesn’t show us the whole scene, let alone what may be found in the next valley beyond the hill we’re now climbing. Which, I think, O’Donohue understood better than I do. So I grant him the final words.

Stillness is vital to the world of the soul. If, as you age, you become more still, you will discover that stillness can be a great companion. The fragments of your life will have time to unify, and the places where your soul-shelter is wounded or broken will have time to knit and heal. You will be able to return to yourself.

John O’Donohue

Easter Gifts

On By ednafroeseIn Beauty, flowers, SolitudeLeave a comment
Photo of a single amaryllis, newly opened. It is mostly pink with the lower three petals partly white.

This was an unexpected gift for Easter—well, sort of. The first of three, it opened fully only two days after Easter. I have not yet learned the art of caring for amaryllis in such a way that I can plan the likely date of flowering; that this one came so close to Easter was a blessed surprise.

All during Holy Week, I watched the developing bud with intense hope, praying that it would open in time to delight our visiting grandchildren. My disappointment is eased by remembering their eager faces as they speculated just when that swelling bud would begin to divide itself and when the fattest one would finally spread wide to the sun. I did send them pictures! Too bad the photo didn’t capture a subtle glitter on the topmost petals that is visible only in certain angles of light.

The perfect symmetry of this huge flower (6 inches across and slightly taller than that) fascinates me; it draws my eye from the darkest pink streaks down into the verdant green of the throat where the ovary is hidden. The stamens (male) hold the pollen on the anther at the end of the filament; the pistil in the centre (female) has the pollen receptor, or the stigma, at the end of the style. In this photo, the stigma has not yet opened out and curved up to receive pollen. The ovary, which becomes the seed holder in a fertilized flower, develops just a bit later as the flower begins to wilt.

All of that information is courtesy of several websites that I read through before beginning to write. It had not been at all necessary for simply meditating on such exquisite beauty. Gazing at the lines, the color shading, the texture, the balance of the whole—which is so much more than the assembly of the individual parts—created silence within me. Words became unnecessary. Thought itself held still.

Strangely, looking at the photo does not provoke the same response; it simply calls forth a memory of the silence. Perhaps the difference lies in the absence of the light. For the flower seems to hold light inside itself, as if the petals breathe in light as we breathe in air. In their presence, the heart too gains light and lightness.

Serendipitously, as the amaryllis readied itself to display glory, a book nudged itself into my notice: Solitude by Michael Harris. I no longer remember who or what highlighted the title for me, but its subtitle—In Pursuit of a Singular Life in a Crowded World—demanded attention.

Photo of book cover.

Full disclosure here: there is no doubt that in my case, this book is preaching to the choir; I have ever been a lover of solitude and am usually happy to be in the company of my own thoughts. It is lovely, though, to be told that my lifelong habit of daydreaming, a habit generally dismissed as a waste of time and a self-indulgent laziness, is actually a virtue. Indeed, Harris argues that it is absolutely essential for creativity and for a healthy identity.

One can be instructed in society; one is inspired only in solitude

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

   I do not yet know what remedies Harris will offer to a world seemingly permanently hooked on online distractions, because, as of this writing, I am only a quarter of the way through the book. Already I’m prepared to recommend it to one and all. One early chapter all by itself – “What is solitude for?” – is sufficient to justify the book. Harris answers that question with three items: new ideas (creativity requires solitude), an understanding of self, and closeness to others. To the likely objection that the last benefit is counter-intuitive, Harris explains, “The ability to be alone, . . . is anything but a rejection of close bonds. It’s an affirmation of those bonds on the most essential level. To be happily alone is to affirm one’s faith in the love of others.”

To be happily alone is to affirm one’s faith in the love of others.

Michael Harris

So, then, two Easter gifts have come my way: flowers and a book. I am grateful.  

photo of the three amaryllis flowers, all wide open.