I had two quiet days in solitude over Christmas Eve and Christmas. I was going to have dinner with a couple of friends on Christmas Day, but they got sick, so the plan was cancelled. While I’m sure I would have enjoyed being with my friends, I was by no means heartbroken to be alone on Christmas. In fact, being alone on major holidays is something I actually relish. Big holidays tend to be very quiet days—there is little or no business as usual out in the world—and there is a palpable silence and quiet in the air. It’s a wonderful time for solitude. We had a wild storm the first day, and I sat in my armchair for many hours watching it—huge wind gusts slamming the house, dark clouds of rain arriving and departing, things blowing through the air, a tree snapping in half, rain battering the windows, the mountains appearing and disappearing, clouds racing past. It was quite a show. When the rain stopped and the clouds lifted, the mountain sides that I see out my window were, for the first time this season, white with snow. I felt immense gratitude to simply be alive. Many people are horrified by the possibility of spending a major holiday alone, or going for a solitary walk, or eating alone at a restaurant. For women especially, such things have often been either dangerous or a sign of social failure and stigma—and in some societies on earth, they still are. But for most of us reading this page, the only danger in being alone on a holiday, or in a restaurant, or on a walk in a reasonably safe location, is in our heads. It’s a story. We can be having a perfectly beautiful day and then a thought pops up and reminds us, “This is Christmas,” and then perhaps we are instantly flooded with ideas about what that means, how “Christmas” should look, what it used to be like when we were children or when we were married or when our children were still living at home or whatever the particular story is—and suddenly we are swamped in feelings of loneliness, sadness, shame and despair. But all we need to do is open our eyes and notice where we actually are. “Christmas” is a label, a word with all sorts of different associations depending on our particular conditioning. For some, it is a day to go to a Chinese restaurant and then on to a movie. For others, it has no significance at all. For some, it is something to hate. For others, something to defend. For many, it means family—and for some of us, that is a happy prospect and for others it is a nightmare. And yet, that nightmare is also a story—a bunch of memories and judgments and expectations that often turn into a self-fulfilling prophecies. What if we don’t know what “Christmas” or “New Years” is or what it should be like? What if we’re simply open to how it actually is? What if we recognize that this particular moment has never been here before and will never be here again—that we actually can’t step into the same river twice, and that the one stepping is not the same person from one instant to the next? I love to walk alone…I see more when I walk alone. I enjoy eating alone in a restaurant. I also love eating and walking with friends. But solitary walks and meals are lovely in a different way. And every year over New Years, I take three or four days to be on silent retreat by myself at home. The general idea, which I don’t always follow to the letter, but which I abide by more or less, is that I don’t hold meetings or visit with friends or talk on the phone, I don’t read or send email or Skype or peruse the internet, I don’t read novels or watch movies or TV (except for about half an hour on New Year’s Eve watching the ball drop in NYC on CNN with Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin, listening to the wonderful medley of songs they play as the confetti falls and the crowds of freezing young people kiss and wave, all of which is a sentimental treat and a tradition that I love). Basically, for three or four days, I just sit quietly, watching the clouds in the sky and the hawks circling the mountains. I go for walks, maybe I read a bit in a Zen book or an Advaita book, but not much. If I write at all, it is by hand—not on my computer and not very much (although on one past New Year’s retreat, I posted on Facebook). So these are not hard and fast rules so much as general guidelines. I follow my heart—but basically, it’s a few days that I set aside where I disengage from my usual routine, from business as usual—where I let go of all the usual ways of entertaining or distracting myself in moments of emotional unease, where I take a break from the News and from the world of words—and simply be. It’s a meditation retreat. Years ago, when I lived with a close friend, we used to take silent days sometimes. So this kind of silent time doesn’t necessarily require living alone, although it probably won’t be an option in the same way if you have young children. But depending on their age, they might even be interested in doing this. And if they’re not, then you might try paring down what you can in that context, being silent and un-busy except as needed for them—and then consciously be with them, regarding them and their world not as a distraction or an interruption, but as the Guru itself (which they are) coming to pull the rug out from any place where you try to land and find false comfort and certainty. Likewise, if you’re with family over the holidays and you’d rather not be, maybe it’s possible to see and be with a challenging family in a new way, maybe they too are the Guru—and while you can’t control them, is it possible for you to not be your same old habitual self expecting them to be their same old habitual selves? What if you don’t know who you are, or who they are, or what will happen next? Anyway, I just wanted to encourage us all to enjoy the holidays we actually have, however they are, rather than wishing for some other version. It always boils down to being right here, right now.
Posted on: Fri, 26 Dec 2014 18:35:06 +0000
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