Finding Our Spiritual Ancestry In The Desert
‘Wild Monastics’
Wild Wisdom Two, Saturday 19th March
A few weeks ago, year 2 of Wild Wisdom School journeyed together into the desert monastic traditions through the familiar four fold vessel of the spirit, body, intellect and imagination. We have travelled to great distances and depths together, in the warm and loving space so generously provided each time by Juliette. I am so grateful for this space and for this vessel, and I am struck by the impact of simply turning up again and again, of committing to something and being with the turbulence of the road in companionship with one another. This is only my relationship to it however, and I feel completely trusting in the ‘rightness’ for those whose personal exit point is somewhere along the way.
The last time we met we crossed the ‘Jesus threshold’, which marks the point in our story when our present day calendar actually begins. This weekend we entered the world of the desert monastic movements, from the Essenes through to the Desert Mothers and Fathers. The Essenes were one of the three major sects at the time, alongside the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Discovery of their lives, through manuscripts such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, have provided us with our first example of monastic life; a life of commitment to spiritual practice and withdrawal from the civilised world. It is thought they lived a communal life dedicated to asceticism, voluntary poverty, and daily immersion. It is also thought by some scholars that Jesus had significant involvement with them, and many Essenes also became Christians after his death.
Later, in the sandy deserts of Egypt, we met the Desert Mothers and Fathers. Sometimes in community, and other 
times in solitude, these were people also dedicated to a simpler way of life away from the temptations of greed and power that gripped religious orders in the cities. Reading sayings that we have from them, I felt such alignment and companionship. I was struck with a sense that the spiritual community I relate to is not only contained to those I share space with today, but with those who have trodden a similar path of the heart right through the ages. I have often felt sadness that I don’t feel a particularly strong connection with my ancestry, something I think that plagues our culture as a whole. Reading the words of the Desert Mothers and Fathers pulled me into my ancestral lineage. These are my ancestors – my heart knows theirs.
Below are a couple of sayings from the Desert Mothers – Amma Sarah and Amma Synceltica (Amma translates as mother):
“If I prayed God that all people should approve of my conduct, I should find myself a penitent at the door of each one, but I shall rather pray that my heart may be pure toward all.”
“There are many who live in the mountains and behave as if they were in the town; they are wasting their time. It is possible to be a solitary in one’s mind while living in a crowd; and it is possible for those who are solitaries to live in the crowd of their own thoughts.”
The desert movement found its way to Europe predominantly though a Romanian monk named John Cassian who 
travelled to the Egyptian desert and spread the desert traditions throughout Europe in the 3rd and 4th centuries. During our quiet time together in the afternoon I chose to delve into the forest of books Sam generously offered to the space. I read further about John Cassian and discovered that his great work ‘Conferences of the Fathers’ was commissioned by an Irish bishop for the purpose of providing a methodical representation of the teachings of the desert wisdom. This Irish bishop was anxious about the unruly way these teachings, transported initially via their sayings, were being taken on by people of his land. The resulting manuscript that he commissioned formed the basis for monastic life as we know it today. It was picked up by St Benedict who based his monastic rule on this desert model while adapting it to western conditions. In fact, it wasn’t only a major shaping force for monastic life in Europe, but for European civilisation as a whole. The rule of Benedict inspired and sustained an alternative model of life. It was one of hard-working, economically self-sufficient communities conscious of their responsibilities to the world around them but practicing a gospel form of the radical detachment exemplified by the desert traditions. It was a model of life not taught by dogmatic uniformity, but rather through the power of example. And they were communities respecting difference with prayer and contemplation at the heart.
We are not a Benedictine community, but I feel very strongly the Benedictine spirit, and thus the desert spirit, living through our Wild Wisdom Community.
Ahh…. That’s a good feeling…. It’s like sitting in a supportive ancestral armchair….
Written by Beth.
