“You do not need to leave your room … simply wait, be quiet, still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you.”
~ Frank Kafka (1883-1924)
Solitude is not loneliness. Many people feel lonely. Even those with an active social media presence. Even those with real friends once the lights go out. Solitude is different from aloneness. It is the state of being perfectly comfortable with oneself and loving every moment of it. Fertile solitude goes beyond this by finding ways to uplift oneself to a higher plane to enrich mind and soul (hence, ‘fertile’). Some achieve fertile solitude through spirituality, broadly defined. Others find transcendent beauty in art, literature, and even science. Still others find it in service to others. Whichever path you take, the goal is the same – to attain an encompassing sense of wellbeing doing what enlarges your mind and soul. The Japanese have a very similar word for it: seijaku:
This “profound peace” often comes from outside – from seeing a breathtaking mountain, or a moving artwork; it may come from reading a touching poem or listening to a moving song. Yet these external stimuli are merely props or aids for contemplation. Ultimately profound peace comes only to those who are ready to receive the blessings of nature or sublime works of man. Just as “chance favors the prepared mind”, so I put it that “beauty and wonder favors the prepared mind”. In particular, one must be ready to be amazed, and there’s plenty to be amazed! May you find your own seijaku moments and may you be “married to amazement” as the American poet Mary Oliver puts it. Complement these thoughts with the following poems that ponder on the manifold blessings of fertile solitude.
Excerpts of ‘When Death Comes’ by Mary Oliver (1935-2019)
Therefore, I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,
and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular
and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, to inward silence.
and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.
When it’s over, I want to say, all my life
I was a bride married to amazement,
I was the bridegroom, taking the world in my arms.
When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.
I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.
***
‘Today I Was Happy, So I Made this Poem’ by James Wright (1927-1980)
As the plump squirrel scampers
Across the roof of the corncrib,
The moon suddenly stands up in the darkness,
And I see that it is impossible to die.
Each moment of time is a mountain.
An eagle rejoices in the oak trees of heaven,
Crying
This is what I wanted.
***
‘Afternoon on a Hill’ by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)
I will be the gladdest thing
Under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
And not pick one!
I will look at cliffs and clouds
With quiet eyes,
Watch the wind bow down the grass
And the grass rise.
And when lights begin to show
Up from the town
I will mark which must be mine,
And then start down!
***
Excerpts from ‘My Life’ by Billy Collins (b. 1941)
But this morning, sitting up in bed,
wearing my black sweater and my glasses,
the curtains drawn and the windows up,
I am a lake, my poem is an empty boat,
and my life is the breeze that blows
through the whole scene
stirring everything it touches –
the surface of the water, the limp sail,
even the heavy, leaf trees along the shore.
***
Bliss by May Sarton (1912-1995)
In the middle of the night,
My bedroom washed in moonlight
And outside
The faint hush-hushing
Of an ebbing tide,
I see Venus
Close to
The waning moon.
I hear the bubbling hoot
Of a playful owl.
Pierrot’s purrs
Ripple under my hand,
And all this is bathed
In the scent of roses
By my bed
Where there are always
Books and flowers.
In the middle of the night,
The bliss of being alive!
