For one week leading into the darkest day of the year, I lived in rapturous silence amid the Benedictine Monks at the New Camaldoli Hermitage on a steep cliffside of the Lucia Mountains, Big Sur. No phone, no internet, no socializing — no problem.
Although I have not practiced the faith of my childhood for decades, I felt a remembered reverence for the gold vessel’s significance—in the form of unleavened bread, it held the Body of Christ, an influential prophet or Son of God, depending on your leanings.
The brothers continue the ancient tradition of the Camaldolese, a sect with roots in Northern Italy.
I rose at 5 a.m. each morning to sit with the monks in the chapel as they chanted Vigils, their canonical hour of solemn praise to God. I attended their Lauds and Vespers, other daily offices of devotion, absorbing the grace and music of the human voice, their only instrument. Even through his mask, the cantor’s mellifluent tenor voice soothed my over-loaded mind.
Unimportant and useless data slipped away like ash from a dying fire. There is a lot to be said for the Spiritual Void. The Buddhists assert that one must go Empty for Wisdom to find its way in.
Each evening after Vespers we were invited to sit meditation in the airy rotunda, an octagonal sanctuary with a sunken marble floor. A small monstrance, which I knew well from Catholic breeding, held the Holy Host and was placed on the minimalist wooden altar or tabernacle. Although I have not practiced the faith of my childhood for decades, I felt a remembered reverence for the gold vessels’ significance—in the form of unleavened bread, it held the Body of Christ, an influential prophet or Son of God, depending on your leanings.
I moved with ease and comfort among the Benedictines, in their flowing white garments with cowls. Just judging from the books and gifts in their store, Christian and New Age, they are ecumenical and all-embracing. They sell honey that they harvest and granola that they bake; I purchased a handcrafted ceramic incense holder and soap that came all the way from the mother hermitage in Italy.
The head monk, who practices yoga, gave a sermon based on Dr. Martin Luther King’s quote, “The moral arc of history is long but it bends toward justice.” Though they live the hermitic life, the brothers keep abreast of current events. Not proselytizers in any measure, they exude a tender welcoming, and heartwarming acceptance of humanity in all its power and weakness, without uttering a word.
Could there be a more magnificent, more heavenly “cathedral,” than the Big Sur Coast, in praise to whatever deities, pagan or Christian, one puts faith in?
It was at the San Francisco Zen Center years ago where I first met their famous brethren David Steindl-Rast, an inter-faith cleric, committed to open dialogue, and who supports the interaction between science and spirituality. His many books include Belonging to the Universe, co-authored with Fritjof Capra (bestselling author of The Tao of Physics).
Every day I sank deeper into the mysticism that permeates the untamable escarpment rising from the sea. It is a mystical ambiance that predates the Hermitage, the nearby Esalen Institute, as well as all human-defined religions. Henry Miller and his establishment dropouts, the New Agers, and 1960s hippies have all been drawn to this coast, seeking refuge from our frenzied world.
Daily, I walked a worn path, my only companions on those walks were bluebirds, quail, oaks, pines, fragrant chaparral. I never felt lonely nor did I once miss being “connected.”
My timepiece was the chapel bells. The timbered cliffs that crowd a precarious, often slipping narrow road to the Pacific, reign Supreme here. People come from around the world to drive that slim ribbon of asphalt that traverses dozens of redwood-filled canyons.
When that Big Storm, the Atmospheric River, came through like a furious flood on Monday, December 13, it felt Biblical in proportions. Surely, 40 days and 40 nights of rain poured down in a 48-hour time span. I hunkered down ecstatic in my lofty perch — praise rain gods, we need it! It seemed the ocean’s waves were climbing the steep cliffs and washing over my little guesthouse.
Could there be a more magnificent, more heavenly “cathedral,” than the Big Sur Coast, in praise to whatever deities, pagan or Christian, one puts faith in? Some sixty-three years ago an Italian hermit, Dom Agostino Modotti, searched long and hard and found this spot to build a monastery, continuing a thousand-year tradition.
Who needs to run off to India, the Vatican, or to any far-flung ashrams? The sacred ground, its peace, and grace — might be right in your own backyard.
