“There is a crack in everything,
that’s how the light gets in”

— Leonard Cohen. Anthem (The Future, 1992)

One of the effects of chronic severe illness is that it cuts you off from the outside world.  When I was first ill there was no real internet to speak of, and the only people with email addresses were those at university or in forward-thinking companies.  Connection to other computers was carried out through FTP (File Transfer Protocol) requests and virtual logins. 

At this time, people in the illness community connected with each other via lists of postal addresses and landline numbers.  We sent postcards and conducted occasional and fairly brief phone calls.  But these were welcome contact with something outside of bedroom walls.

Even now, with the open access to a whole world of interconnection (which is hugely important and welcome) it is still true that our surroundings remain pretty much the same.  We can make contact with others dwelling in cyberspace but are essentially still within the same four walls.  If we are fortunate, we may see another room from time to time.    

I am fortunate in seeing my children very regularly and have a postman who likes chatting about 1980s heavy rock, but others may see few human beings.  Visitors are somewhat of a double-edged sword as, while they are incredibly welcome, sitting and talking can be exhausting.  I am, however, still grateful when visitors do take the time to come here, realising that it is a kindness I cannot reciprocate.

While all of this probably sounds somewhat gloomy, the fact is that human beings are nearly infinitely adaptable.  We get used to a routine of a world of one (or two) rooms, with no place to be or job to go to.  Schedules and deadlines of the past are quickly forgotten and replaced with medical appointments, benefit applications and whether supplements and medication need to be taken before, after or with meals.  This is the new normal.

Although we have not chosen our seclusion, in history there are those who seek out isolation from others for reasons of faith.  Hermits have included the Anchorites of the Christian church (a popular tradition in 11^th-15^th century Britain with Julian of Norwich (1342-1416) being the most famous, having written the earliest surviving book by a female author in English, Revelations of Divine Love), Catholic monastics who took to the stone hives of Skellig Michael in Ireland (also known as the planet Ahch-To where Luke Skywalker made his hermitage), and are venerated also in various forms of Buddhism, including several figures in Zen such as Shitou Xiqian (China, 700-790) and Ryōkan Taigu (Japan, 1758–1831).  In the late 20^th century a British Buddhist nun, Ani Tenzin Palmo, lived for twelve years in a cave in the Himalayas, a story told in the beautiful book Cave in the Snow. 

Some people already have a faith or spiritual tradition when they become ill.  Others often find they turn to one, or else develop a spiritual practice such as meditation.  With so much time on your hands to ask questions about the purpose of life and reasons for pain and suffering, coupled with extended periods alone, this is probably natural.  Netflix and Facebook can act as a distraction for so long, but not forever. 

Even within the pain and aloneness, sometimes we can find a place which is still and quiet, in which there is peace.  We may also notice that life is not about how far you can travel, or how much you an achieve, but instead on how fully you embody the existence that you have.  I am not saying that happens all of the time, but it is there. 

The Chinese hermit monk Shitou Xiqian wrote:

“I’ve built a grass hut where there’s nothing of value.
After eating, I relax and enjoy a nap.
When it was completed, fresh weeds appeared.
Now it’s been lived in – covered by weeds.

The person in the hut lives here calmly,
Not stuck to inside, outside, or in between…
Though the hut is small, it includes the entire world.
In ten square feet, an old man illumines forms and their nature.”

And this is the point, although the hut is small, it includes the entire world, and that would be true whether or not we are streaming the internet into our confinement.  To see this, however, we need to drop away the feelings of wanting more, needing more and comparing the life with how now with the life we once had. 

I am not saying that is easy, but even in our apparent isolation, life continues to flow in and out of us in every moment, from every corner of the known world, in a far wider web than even Tim Berners-Lee could ever have imagined.   Sometimes a glimmer of that vastness can make its way through the cracks of pain, and we see that there is no way we can ever be separate from that, even if it can often feel like it.

Current Reading

Basic Counselling Skills – Richard Nelson-Jones
The Circle of the Way – Barbara O’Brien
Kafka on the Shore – Haruki Murakami (audiobooks)
Landmarks – Robert Macfarlane
Living Yogacara – Tagawa Shun’ei
Nothing is Hidden – Jisho Warner, Shōhaku Okumura, John McRae, Taigen Dan Leighton (eds)
Traces of Dreams – Haruo Shirane