from the sprigs* archives — 24/7
July 11, 2008
*Sprigs was my first blog, which most of you never laid eyes on. The entry is from Nov. 30, 2005, ages ago in Internet time. Oh, and it’s a true story. Every word.
I was visiting a friend of mine in Washington, D.C. He was a little more than a friend, actually. He was my ex-boyfriend. More than that even, he was the first guy I ever dated. We’d remained close even after breaking up, and I hadn’t been dating LoveShack long enough for him to put up a fuss when I announced I was jetting off to the nation’s capitol to see my first boyfriend turned ex-boyfriend turned best buddy.
The Ex was active in the peace movement. He was living in voluntary poverty at Dorothy Day Catholic Worker House and protesting things and stuff on a regular basis. The trip was kind of boring overall. Conversations in the house always hinged on political themes, and I wasn’t really into it. The people living at Dorothy Day were so good, so selfless, so Catholic. I didn’t have much in common with them.
After a few days, I gave in to the laidback pace of life at Dorothy Day. I slept in late. I ate gobs of donated food. I wrote letters to LoveShack. And I read. Tired of conversations about achieving world peace, I started talking with The Ex about inner peace, meditation and other topics that for me existed only in the theoretical realm.
He gave me the book Peace Is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh, which I devoured. I’ve always been an overachiever and, after reading that book, I was overcome by a fierce determination to achieve inner peace as quickly and efficiently as possible. I would use meditation as a mechanism for getting there.
The Ex told me about something that might help with my accelerated enlightenment plan. It was called “poustinia,” which is Russian for “desert.” He explained that this was a practice brought to the United States by a Russian woman named Catherine Doherty. Though it was completely bound up in Catholic traditions, the root of the idea was to have quiet and solitary time (with God). I added the parentheses there because that wasn’t the important part for me. I just saw it as a great time to meditate and in turn speed along on my inner journey toward self-awareness and self-lessness.
So I decided to do it. The Ex called Madonna House and made all the arrangements. I would be off for poustinia the next morning.
Here’s how poustinia works. You are led by a nun into a smallish, sparsely furnished room. The room includes a twin-sized bed, two lamps, a rocking chair with a small table next to it, and a desk with several items laid out on it — a pad of donated stationary, a pen, a copy of the Bible, and a brochure about poustinia and Madonna House.
A ginormous cross hangs on the wall, and there is a little thingy to kneel on in front of the cross, in case you are moved to do so. The room does not have a door, only a curtain drawn across the doorway. The curtain doesn’t reach the floor; it flutters about 9 inches above it. I guess the nuns want to have the option of looking underneath the curtain to ascertain what you are up to during your stay with them.
As one “making a poustinia,” you are to stay in the room for 24 hours (though you can slip out quietly to use the restroom down the hall). During the 24-hour period, you cannot talk, and you cannot eat. (You can actually have tea and a little stale bread, but that’s it.)
That’s poustinia in a nutshell.
I found myself completely and utterly bored within the first 5 minutes, during which time I’d looked over the brochure, walked in circles around the room, sneaked down the hall for a pee, and tried to sit comfortably, first on the inherently uncomfortable rocking chair and then on the ridiculously firm bed.
After the first 5 minutes, I tried to meditate. I got nothing. I tried harder. Still nothing. I tried to do it without trying. I just wasn’t feeling it. I ate some bread. I made a cup of decaf tea. I looked out the window at the world in which people played basketball, talked and ate. I saw a group of folks outside a nearby building having some sort of social gathering. They had a table full of great-looking food, including scrumptious desserts. Aah, how I longed for desserts. I hadn’t eaten anything in about 10 minutes, except that crusty old bread. I landed hard on the rocking chair and gnawed at another slice.
I felt completely unsatisfied. Not at all what I’d anticipated.
I remembered The Ex had told me he’d slept for a long time during his first poustinia. I tried to sleep. That would pass the time, I thought. But I couldn’t sleep on that unyielding mattress. I knelt on the kneely thing and tried to pray. I wrote LoveShack a letter, which I still have. It reads, in part, “I am here reaching out and becoming one with that spirit within me, within everything and everyone in the universe.” Yeah, right. What a bunch of malarkey.
Once I was done with my letter, I read Song of Songs. Why not? The Bible was right there, and it was the only reading material other than the brochure I’d already skimmed. The Ex had told me there was some racy stuff in Song of Songs, so I decided to see what the fuss was all about. I was not disappointed. Your name is an oil poured out. That sentence really got me. Dare I say this was some hot writing. I kept reading. Your lips distill wild honey.
It must have been a couple of hours into my stay, after I’d filled up on bread and read through Song of Songs, when something finally stirred inside me. It was a strong sensation. Palpable.
I was horny.
Horny as hell.
But what could I do about it? There wasn’t even a door on my room, and there were nuns crawling all around the place. To further complicate things, a guy in the room next door was in the middle of making his own poustinia, so I really had no privacy. What was wrong with me that I could come here, to this sacred place, looking for inner peace only to end up all hot under the collar — and with a giant cross lurking over me, to boot? Was this God’s message for me? Part of my path to enlightenment?
I am not going to tell you what I did. But I will tell you I did it seven times. Seven times in 24 hours, all on God’s watch.
The next morning, the nun peeked through the curtain and told me my time was up. I descended two flights of stairs behind her, joined her for a cup of tea at a table on the main floor. She asked me how everything had gone. I grinned and kept my eyes on my teacup. We talked about The Ex, who’d been there several times and had made quite an impression on the nuns. He was such a good person, she said, so in touch with himself. Apparently, I had really managed to get in touch with myself as well, just not the way I’d anticipated.
What the hell? They say God works in mysterious ways.
Addendum: I just reread the letter I wrote LoveShack while in poustinia. Apparently, the bread was made by the nuns. (Shame on me for describing it as stale.) And there was a rosary in the room, along with holy water. I don’t recall those things being there.
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24 Responses to “from the sprigs* archives — 24/7”
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This work is licensed under Creative Commons.
If you don’t credit Dana (by using her full name and preferably by linking back to the appropriate post) for however you copy, distribute, transmit or adapt her words, you are being bad. And naughty. And she will have her servant monkeys hunt you down and cut your hands off so you can never copy, distribute, transmit or adapt anyone’s work again and call it your own.
(Unless, of course, you were to use your butt cheeks to manipulate your keyboard with the copying, distributing, transmitting, adapting and whatnot, but Dana fortunately has only met one person whose butt cheeks are that talented. He could play a major third on a piano using nothing but his ass. She kids you not.).
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See, this is what comes of being too goal-oriented. Great post, though.
[...] My Gorgeous Somewhere He gave me the book Peace Is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh, which I devoured. I’ve always been an overachiever and, after reading that book, I was overcome by a fierce determination to achieve inner peace as quickly and efficiently as possible. I would use meditation as a mechanism for getting there. —- [...]
Dave, I will be whipping out the best of Sprigs now and again. I want to get those posts back up on a live site, since I (in a huff) deleted the original Sprigs blog. Stupid me. Glad you liked it.
I remember this entry from Sprigs!
I remember the first one I ever read from Sprigs, too- about Andrew Bird.
Tina, that means that even if you are my youngest reader, you are also my oldest, and most faithful, reader.
P.S. More to come from the WayBack machine that you haven’t ever yet seen.
I remember Sprigs, but not this post, so it must be from before I found Sprigs.
A Russian woman named Catherine Doherty? That sounds weird.
Cool… Sprigs IS in the Wayback Machine. I kept forgetting to check.
Catherine, I don’t make this stuff up. She is talked about here:
http://www.madonnahouse.org/tour/poustinia.html
Andre, a post good enough to elicit a comment from my best friend? That means it must be good, since you usually just lurk like a big lurkster.
lurklurk…
BTW, I think I win the longest reader award, unless I somehow fit in a different category in your mind.
Andre, there *is* no category for you, my sweets. Hey, while you’re here, read the poem I wrote today. It’s up there. Top of screen.
I already have, but can’t comment on two of your posts in one day without creating a tear in time and space.
Weird! I was just tweeting about Dark Matter, which has something to do with time and space, I am nearly sure of it. It also has something to do with New Jersey.
Comment on it! Do it, bitch!
P.S. Must later show you the ass-reaming e-mail I received from this dude I haven’t talked to in a decade and who contacted me out of nowhere after using The Google to track me down ~ also known as The Guy I Am Very Happy I Live Thousands of Miles Away from Lest I Would Fear for My Life.
You always get the good Google stalkers…
I have just woken up, a little hungover, very grumpy (I was out late last night) and come down to this and I have been rolling around helpless with laughter, god forgive me, me being a good Irish lapse catholic and all, this is such a fabulous story……the fast track to enlightenment is getting is touching yourself, tee hee hee, it’s bloody brilliant………thankyou for a wonderful way to wake up (ha ha).
ooops that should say is touching yourself not is getting is touching…..
Dark Matter is something that is lurking in Dubya’s brain, I think. When it isn’t out there in time and space, that is.
Jo, there will be more of this sort of thing ~ lots more. Sprigs is the blog wherein I wrote things like this every day. Back then, I was really dedicated to blogging/writing in ways I no longer seem to me. Sprigs was my Citizen Kane, all that follows paling in comparison.
Catherine, so he’s the one who’s been hogging it all. No wonder the universe is pissed at him. And Stephen Hawking.
Teehee! This is a great post. I love it.
Thanks, Dale.
Oh, FANTASTIC. Dave just sent me over here - thanks for the coffee-choke this morning, Dana.
“I’ve always been an overachiever and, after reading that book, I was overcome by a fierce determination to achieve inner peace as quickly and efficiently as possible.”
Priceless sentence.
Hi Teriomorph, pleased to meet you. I love it when Dave plays matchmaker.
Yeah, the irony of trying to fast-track enlightenment. So Western mindset-y.