Invitation to Reclusion

“The Artful Recluse: Painting, Poetry, and Politics in 17^th Century China” is an exhibit of fifty-seven works of art, primarily scrolls, currently on exhibit at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art.* The featured “Dia de los Muertos” celebration my son Grant and I went to see there during my recent trip to California was of no interest to us once we arrived, but the scrolls captivated us. Viewing them was not only exquisitely pleasurable but also intriguing since they prompted contemplation of “reclusion,” a word I had never before encountered in that form.

Reclusion is the act of shutting or the state of being shut up in seclusion; the condition or life of a recluse, a person who withdraws, who lives in solitude to devote himself to prayer and meditation. Political turmoil during and after the collapse of the Ming Dynasty created a group of dispossessed elites, scholar-officials who had mastered painting, poetry and calligraphy. They disengaged from society and retreated to nature to practice their art forms. Some of the scrolls, which often show landscapes of mountains, deep-cut gorges, caves, foliage and spiraling paths, include barely visible, small, robed figures of those in reclusion. In purposeful solitude, they could communicate their most important inner feelings during a time of crisis. One artist, Xiang Shengmo, included with a forty-three-foot scroll twenty poems that explore disengagement as a way to reengage. In one, he asks: “Who says reclusive living need be remote?”**

Disengagement as a way to reengage. Reclusive living that need not be remote. What timeless ideas these are. When put into practice, what refuge, rest and restoration they can provide us in our busy, demanding lives. Reclusion need not be for years and years, or for a lifetime. It can be for several brief periods during one day. It can be sitting down quietly, alone, with a cup of hot tea, outside, watching clouds move across the sky. It can be a half-hour walk by oneself in nature, looking across fields to the mountains, seeing cottonwoods change color, watching their leaves fall or silently keeping company with Sandhill cranes as they feed on tractor-flattened rows of grain. Dedicating time to such moments of reclusion is a gift of love, not only to ourselves and our surroundings, but also to the people in our lives who then encounter the restored version of ourselves.

“An artist’s date,” author Julia Cameron calls this kind of alone time experiencing something interesting, exciting, different, new. Experiencing new sounds, new sights, new smells, new tastes is a variation on the theme of reclusion. In her book, The Artist’s Way, and in her workshops, she assigns an artist’s date each week as homework. The artist’s date is to be taken alone, not with a partner or a friend. She also assigns two, twenty-minute walks a week, alone, not with a pet. These are contemporary practices of reclusion. Each week, for twelve weeks, she checked to see if the assignments were completed. Often there was resistance. Often there was noncompliance. Why? We had the opportunity to contemplate that. She invited us to continue going on artist’s dates after the workshop ended. I have. People who have lived in New Mexico much longer than I are amazed by how many places I’ve been, what I’ve seen, what I’ve done. Often it is more than they have. They ask how I find out about places and events. I read the weekly independent newspaper and choose things of interest that sound like fun. I find it refreshing and renewing to do them. 

This week I went on a two-hour crane walk offered through Oasis around the perimeter of 138 acres of open space owned by the city of Albuquerque.  Migrating Sandhill cranes began arriving the beginning of this month. I strolled around a holiday arts and crafts fair in Placitas, a community north of here. I attended a book reading and signing by Sherman Alexie, the award-winning Native American writer and the screenwriter of "Smoke Signals." He's described as "mordantly funny," and he was. Held in an auditorium on the UNM campus, the event was free. There was an overflow crowd. People were turned away. I had priority seating because I purchased his newest book, a collection of short stories entitled Blasphemy, at my local independent bookstore. I learned of his appearance while on another artist's date to the KiMo Theatre for my birthday. The bookstore representative there told me when Alexie was coming. Reclusive living need not be remote. Nor is it limited to artists or writers. As my artist friend's answering machine reminded us last week, "Your life is a work of art." Artist dates can include solitary excursions among others, can be non-denominational reclusion. 

Should you practice, and actually enjoy, reclusion, Julia Cameron offers an extended version as an assignment - media deprivation. You can push the envelope for one week in silence with no music, television, internet, radio, movies, speaking or reading. Years ago I spent one week deprived of all the above. . . except reading. I knew about the exercise, but I never thought I could do it, so I didn't try (that in itself was a revelation!). When I attended her workshop in May, Julia assigned media deprivation as homework. Being accountable, I had to report that I didn't do it. She assigned it again - for the following week. Then again, to those who still didn't complete it. I was glad I succeeded the second week.  

Time spent in silence, in solitude, in meditation, in contemplation, in nature, on walking, on artist’s dates, in some form of creative expression can renew, restore and re-energize us by bringing balance to our lives. I never knew it was called reclusion, but when I saw the Chinese scroll exhibit at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, I understood it. I resonated with it. One scroll is titled “Invitation to Reclusion.” This week, the Spiritual Adventuress extends that invitation to you.

*   through January 20, 2013

** Los Angeles Times: Santa Barbara Museum of Art reflects on “The Artful Recluse,” by Allan M. Jalon (November 11, 2012).