I have been thinking about the role of art in our lives. That Chinese hermits still felt compelled to scratch poems into the dirt or write them onto stones with water tells me that art is essential to us in a way that our culture may not acknowledge or foster.
China has a tradition of hermits that goes back millennia. The author Red Pine wrote a lovely book about this subject, entitled “Road to Heaven: Encounters with Chinese Hermits”.
I have read the book you mention… I have to say that in the context of what is mentioned in this book, and within the Chinese tradition, I think I have a lot of “hermit in me.” It is difficult to recall the details now, but even when I was a kid, my cousin Wayne and I built a “fort” in an old oak tree that was along an irrigation ditch service road near where our parents lived. This “fort” was some 25 to 35 feet up the tree. I used to love to go up that tree to that “fort” and sit there completely alone with nobody knowing where I was and draw pictures by the hour. Sometimes I would merely go up there and sit and think. I don’t think I was much more than 7 years old at the time, so this would have been the summer of 1968. I did this all summer.
Even to this day, at the institution where I teach, I relish going in to my office very early (05:30 or so) and being alone with … just my contemplation.
This is very sweet.