feminish

“Gone to a monastery, you say?”

I do.

But what, I wonder, does that mean to you?

The Immanent Grove, I call it, or Innisfree.

Wizards?
“Noted for appearing more extensive inside than out”
Small cabins? Hives for the honey bee?
And peace - peace that comes dropping slow?

Midnight all a glimmer? Noon a purple glow? Lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore?

It’s true, I tell you. All true.

Though to be honest there was actually only one self-proclaimed wizard and she was hospitalised on the first Sunday. The world is surprisingly eventful when it is stark and honest.

I could tell you about the Immanent Grove’s unassuming French farmstead outbuildings a few centuries old, the couple of dozen acres of plum trees, the slime-greened poly-tunnels, the two large oak trees and a bare pond - which is what you’d see if you drove along the Route Departmental, weren’t speeding, hadn’t just drunk half a bottle of Duras and happened to glance across the valley through the mist. You wouldn’t be able to see the lotuses, unmanifested in the mud, nor the meditation huts nestled in the scrub brambles, or the wild bees in their hung swarm on the poplar branch beside the walking meditation path. But, like I say, it’s more extensive inside than out.

I’ve trod the pavements grey and have known the urban un-peace, the concrete-echoed droning un-rest. And can tell you that they are absent from this particular Innisfree. Here, waking before dawn, there is four hours under midnight’s glimmer - four hours of silent coming and going outdoors between bells, tea-urns, meditation, breakfast and chi-cong, every step on the frozen mud taken under the silent cloak of the shimmering ceiling of stars. There’s only the sound of your own steps, the cats fighting and the owls whoo-hooing. It’s good to be away from whirring hard drives, whistling central heating and whining fridges - they’re over in the other building, with the nuns, their iPods and the DVD library.

Oh, and lake water lapping? If you pause a moment, feel your feet on the ground under the desk, your bum on the chair and your neck held upright by your back, you might then notice your chest rising and falling ever so gently, the lake water air of your breath lapping right up to your nose and then slowly down again, rising and falling. You don’t need to go to Innisfree for the soothing low sounds by the shore.

“Gone to a monastery, you say?”

I do.

But what, I wonder, does that mean to you?

The Immanent Grove, I call it, or Innisfree.

Wizards?
“Noted for appearing more extensive inside than out”
Small cabins? Hives for the honey bee?
And peace - peace that comes dropping slow?

Midnight all a glimmer? Noon a purple glow? Lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore?

It’s true, I tell you. All true.

Though to be honest there was actually only one self-proclaimed wizard and she was hospitalised on the first Sunday. The world is surprisingly eventful when it is stark and honest.

I could tell you about the Immanent Grove’s unassuming French farmstead outbuildings a few centuries old, the couple of dozen acres of plum trees, the slime-greened poly-tunnels, the two large oak trees and a bare pond - which is what you’d see if you drove along the Route Departmental, weren’t speeding, hadn’t just drunk half a bottle of Duras and happened to glance across the valley through the mist. You wouldn’t be able to see the lotuses, unmanifested in the mud, nor the meditation huts nestled in the scrub brambles, or the wild bees in their hung swarm on the poplar branch beside the walking meditation path. But, like I say, it’s more extensive inside than out.

I’ve trod the pavements grey and have known the urban un-peace, the concrete-echoed droning un-rest. And can tell you that they are absent from this particular Innisfree. Here, waking before dawn, there is four hours under midnight’s glimmer - four hours of silent coming and going outdoors between bells, tea-urns, meditation, breakfast and chi-cong, every step on the frozen mud taken under the silent cloak of the shimmering ceiling of stars. There’s only the sound of your own steps, the cats fighting and the owls whoo-hooing. It’s good to be away from whirring hard drives, whistling central heating and whining fridges - they’re over in the other building, with the nuns, their iPods and the DVD library.

Oh, and lake water lapping? If you pause a moment, feel your feet on the ground under the desk, your bum on the chair and your neck held upright by your back, you might then notice your chest rising and falling ever so gently, the lake water air of your breath lapping right up to your nose and then slowly down again, rising and falling. You don’t need to go to Innisfree for the soothing low sounds by the shore.