Crossing the Little Sur. The highway bridge sweeps back inland, away from the coast. It will return, we’re now in Big Sur country. The great triangular headland of Point Sur is next, the tip rising above both the headland and the Pacific, the lighthouse standing watch. A short three miles or so on the flat marine terrace that is the El Sur Ranch and then the climb into the Forest Cathedral. The southernmost stronghold – something out of either Tolkien or Game of Thrones: The Coastal Redwoods of Big Sur.
The climb continues up to Pfeiffer Ridge and Post Summit before dropping back down to Castro Canyon, the highway once again finding the coast and clinging perilously on the cliffside some 600′ above the Pacific. It is on the descent from the summit that you find the Henry Miller Memorial Library, just off Highway 1 on a southern tributary of Mule Canyon Creek. The library is a house that Miller’s friend, Emil White, built for him in the mid-60’s. It’s now the Big Sur center for all things Miller, but to really get at the man’s love affair with Big Sur, it’s necessary to go farther south, to Anderson Creek at the south end of Partington Ridge, home to Miller’s beloved Anderson Creek Gang.
Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch is the story of Miller’s life and times in Big Sur. The “Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch” phrase is in tribute to the great triptych-on-wood creation The Garden of Earthly Delights by the Dutch master. Miller chose to focus on the left panel of the triptych, generally considered to be a rendition of the Garden of Eden (the center and right panels tell quite different tales and with almost incomprehensible imagery…but that’s another story…). I’ve struggled over the years to get my hands around the man and the scope of his artistry, but some things are clear: he’s present, joyful, in his own way hopeful, even playful. His stories about the quirky cast of Big Sur characters are witty, charming, humorous. However, his reflections on solitude and silence are what I find most compelling…
…After all, this is a Manhattan-born, Brooklyn-raised kid from New York. His early years writing in New York are themselves a story – and then he moved to Paris. To say Miller was a bon vivant and a flaneur, a “man of the boulevards” only scratches the surface. The product of a different age, thinking about Miller’s time in Paris I’m inclined to crank up the Eagle’s Life in the Fast Lane…
How did Miller get from Paris to Big Sur? Interestingly, it was by way of Greece… As those of you who watched the wonderful “The Durrells in Corfu” know, a chance meeting with Lawrence Durrell (older brother Larry) led to an invitation to Corfu in 1939, where Miller lived for a year. He would have stayed longer. He would have stayed for the rest of his life. There was the small issue of WWII…
He returned to New York…and didn’t like what he found. The time in Corfu had taken him to a different place. The pace, the solitude, the silence… Where to recapture that?…
Another 10 miles or so south of Anderson Creek and a half-mile south of Lucia I take the left and go seemingly straight up the hill to the New Camaldoli Hermitage…home to the Camaldoli Benedictines. At nearly 1000′ above Highway 1 and 1400′ above the Pacific, the vista is expansive and the silence…well, to borrow from Miller, exquisite. However, the silence here is foundational for a different consideration: Henri Nouwen’s The Return of the Prodigal Son: A story of Homecoming. Nouwen, who passed away in 1996, was the Dutch-born Catholic priest, university professor, and community pastor much admired for his commitment to adult pastoral counseling, spirituality, and explorations in the Catholic mystical tradition. The book is substantially based upon the well-known parable in the Gospel of Luke (one of the three “lost” stories found there), but with a twist: it is also a story of Nouwen’s fascination with Rembrandt’s great masterpiece “The Return of the Prodigal Son”.
In its own way, Rembrandt’s“Prodigal” is as disturbing as Bosch’s“Garden”. The focus of the painting, the father greeting the prodigal son as he returns home, is tender, touching. However, to the side, the visage of the older brother is disturbing, disconcerting. The story of the Prodigal Son is at most a third of the narrative, with well-known themes: ruination, return, redemption… The more challenging, complicated story is that of the older brother, the father, and what future they can craft together now the prodigal has returned… It probably says more about Rembrandt and Nouwen (and likely me) that this relationship, with its long faithfulness, obedience, insecurities and submerged resentments is a more Gordian Knot… Vice and Virtue, more in common than just starting with “V”?..
Why here at the Camaldoli? I’m looking for the Discipline of Silence and Solitude; the discipline at which the Camaldoli Benedictines are so adept. Nouwen went down this path. He spent some time with the Trappists (technically Cistercians, but who follow The Rule of Saint Benedict) before ultimately leaving the monastic life (although he always considered the Trappist Thomas Merton a mentor). It was his background as a psychologist and counselor that led him back and to his ultimate role in disabled adult communities.
The community here is committed to contemplative prayer. The silence, the solitude are intentional acts: the goal is emptying, journeying to emptiness…
Other than the Vespers/Mass (elements of which are sung in Latin…lovely…), I spend my time in solitude and silence. I could attend Vigils at 5:30 AM, but by that time I am well on my way into the hills; I will not return for several hours. A late breakfast and time spent reading during the warm hours of the day. Vespers at 5:00 PM. My solitary dinner at 6:00. Back into the hills at 7:00. I will not return until I have experienced the silence of astronomical twilight…alone.
Post-sunset, life around me has stilled for the night, save a last pair of doves. The wide Pacific is silent; other than the light of the setting moon I sit in darkness. Waiting for the doves to retire for the night, paying attention to my breathing… Then it is upon me… Immediately the silence and the aloneness are a weight; breathe…breathe… And then they become a deep and breath returns. The Profundum. Deep…empty. The world is empty… The world is full…
Shifting my position, the spell is broken. It was but a moment, but it is enough…
