DESERT RETREAT
From 7-13 May nine participants engaged in an experimental desert retreat at Fowler's Gap, the 39,000 hectare arid zone research station of the University of New South Wales, 110 km north of Broken Hill. The facility has a range of accommodation including a 32 bed dormitory, a four bedroom cottage, the remote Ochre House artist's retreat and the shearers' Quarters which we used. This consists of eight twin share rooms, common room, commercial kitchen and a self-contained flat. Two members flew to Broken Hill and there met with the rest who went by car. Food for the week had been ordered beforehand and delivered from Broken Hill.
Shearers' Quarters
The rhythm we had worked out for each day centred on prayer, engaging the landscape and reflection - the environment on occasion demanding a little Benedictine adaptation. The communal prayer rhythm was based on the Liturgy of the Hours (Morning and Evening Prayer and Compline), two periods of meditation and Eucharist. A significant way of engaging the landscape was through walking, there being five Eco-trails on the property. The evening was given to reflection on a variety of topics.
Three tables - fellowship, study & Eucharist
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Perhaps a way of giving an overview of the days in retrospect is to see them under five headings.
3. Connection. The third day was a trip to nearby Mutawintji National Park, rich in Aboriginal rock art. We opted not to take a regular guided tour, in order to enable more time for reflection and as we had the advantage of artist Terry O'Donnell who knew the area well, and archaeologist Fr Eugene Stockton, amongst our number.
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In journeying to the interior to engage the landscape there is a reversal of our normal Australian geographical experience of clinging to the coast, fleeing the centre. This reflects a spiritual landscape of living on the surface, avoiding the interior life. In facing the challenge - and beauty (the 'living heart') - of the physical, we are also facing the challenge of our own interior lives. Travelling by road we become aware of leaving behind the complexities of urban life as we move into an increasingly simpler landscape. This presents the opportunity to strip the excess from our lives and view our priorities in a different light. In the urban setting the land is viewed and interpreted through external objects - it has been worked for productivity, built on or otherwise transformed by human hands. In the desert it is viewed as it has evolved from the Creator and speaks powerfully of that Creator. For Evagrius Ponticus the contemplation of created things is the fruit of the journey from fear to love and precedes the highest forms of prayer (introduction to The Praktikos). He records a saying of Antony, "My book is the nature of created things, and it is always at hand when I wish to read the works of God". (Praktikos 92; cf. Vitae Patrum 6,4:16).
In the desert there is ample scope for this in the colour, texture, form of:
Trees...
Rocks...
Sand... Water...
Sky...
Wildlife...
In our evening reflections one of the topics we grappled with was the role of silence in the desert environment. In the urban context full of noise we need to create silence in which we can find refuge and draw strength for the spiritual journey. In the desert silence creates us; it is the natural environment and we have only to be in order to allow it to form us. Other areas of discussion included the role of the desert, positive approaches to asceticism, and the interaction with Benedictine spirituality. Poetry and readings were used to explore experience and as a reflection on experience.
This is only one impression of a rich experiment. It was also a time of learning, especially in regard to the format and supportive structures needed to foster a group in such an environment.
Michael Kelly OSB