GODSPOT

By David Wood

Let me show you my 'poustinia'. No, don't run away, I'm not about to flash at you. I have a friend who has one in his garden. It looks like a garden shed. It is a garden shed! but it doesn't function as a garden shed. This little shack is a retreat hole, a sort of wooden cave, a separate inner room, where he goes for solitude, to get away from it all for a bit -yes, wife, children, dog, telephone, the lot. He has one or two things in it which are for him 'holy symbols' -a Christ and a Buddha -to help him refocus, to remind him of more basic things about being alive. It refreshes him, being alone awhile. Personal space.
I have stayed in a retreat house which has half-a-dozen poustinias in the large garden, discreetly apart from each other. These have heat, water, a bed and basic cooking stuff. You can stay there for a few days on your own and the main house will provide one big meal a day if you wish.

Solitude. You have to book a poustinia well in advance, they are much used: you don't have to ," be religious to go on a retreat. I have another friend who has a corner of a room set aside as a quiet place - when she is there, family leave her alone by her instruction: let her be awhile.
What am I saying? We all need space. One reason why our Lakeland is so popular is people's desire for physical space, in what are for most very crowded and busy lives -get away from 'it all ' .Be a bit empty .Space makes sense of everything. What makes a room? Not the furniture but the space between things. If there's no space, it's cluttered, claustrophobic, tasteless in the end. ('give me room' we say). The most important thing about words, music, songs are the spaces, the intervals. If there were no spaces between these words it would just be gobbledygook. When we don't get space, make space, life itself becomes gobbledygook, everything just runs meaninglessly into everything else. When we don't get space we can behave like too many rats in a cage, go frantic, turn, bite, hurt (knives out again).
And we all need inner space. All of us. Notice how a young child, full of activity one moment is suddenly 'not there'. They've switched off from you, everything around, and gone into themselves, their other world, their inner world, taking space. And a parent may say 'come on dreamer, where have you been?' It's much easier for a child to do, harder for us ego-driven adults. But we still need it. More than ever. We need to guard our inner space, our need for solitude, particularly when our lives are too busy, hectic, full of people and decisions. If we pay no attention to keeping that space, our behaviour is always. always a bit insane, moving to the edge, leading us to behave in ways that are less than human. When we do not guard our inner space we end up hating ourselves and disliking others. Losing touch with our inner self is almost the worst crime on earth.
What am .I saying? In a world of mounting anger and frustration ( one in three of all nursing staff have ~ been physically attacked; violence in classrooms, between teachers and parents; road-rage, etc. etc.) where people seem to have less and less space, I am pleading. Make some inner space.

Insist on it. Just 5 minutes a day switched off and into your own, inner room is enough to begin. Don't run away. Make your own invisible garden shed (poustinia) no matter how small and tatty it may seem. It is you. Take longer time when you can. "No my love. I've not gone off you, I just need to be on my own awhile. OK?" For God's sake. Don't be afraid of the solitude. It takes a bit of effort to begin until it becomes an essential habit, but it's who you really are in there. And the truth you will eventually discover if you take the trouble to find yourself is that meeting with your true self is in the end a good experience and helps you to survive all the ordinary, and extraordinary, ups and downs -with hope and love. I urge you to go there, make the space.