HOW I ENDED UP AS AN URBAN HERMIT

1ST PLACE

SENIOR DIVISION

ALBUQUERQUE APARTMENT ASSOCIATION

CITY-WIDE POSTER CONTEST

2024

MONETARY AWARD - $250.00 

I did not plan to spend my life as a religious hermit in an urban environment. I had no plan at all when I left my abusive home at 17, with nothing but the clothes on my back and hippie sandals on my feet.

Despite my family being hostile to all religion, especially Catholicism, I had always been interested in God, and even though homeless, I was determined to somehow continue to pursue Him as best I could.

I crawled out of homelessness by taking advantage of my typing skills (a skill I had learned in High School.)  I was a beautiful young woman, and the only kind of help that anyone wanted to give me was not the type of help I wanted to take. Things were looking grim when the Scientologists scooped me up and gave me a place to stay, "employing" me as a communications secretary, which was mostly typing letters to people we hoped would join us. I worked 11 hours a day, 7 days a week. They gave me room and board and $10 a week as an "allowance."

In the religious sphere, I went from Scientology to Buddhism to Hinduism (Vedanta.) I was searching for the mystical heart of religion.

Photo by Jake Blucker

via "UNSPLASH"

In my working life, I had to support myself as best I could, usually as a legal secretary. I type 120 words a minute, and I usually understood the legalese and legal rationales. In my mid to late 20's, I spent a short time working at a TV studio during the day and writing stories for an episodic television show at night.  But when I was exposed to some horrifically tawdry and immoral aspects of "Hollywood", I became demoralized and just could not remain there. (The worst part of it was that it was my own father who was bragging loudly about having relations with starlets in his office, with the door unlocked, despite having his third wife living with him. I was horrified and felt defiled by having to hear this filth coming from a parent. It destabilized me.)

What followed was a series of very distressing and life-altering events that nearly killed me. My search for God, and peace and blessedness was kicked into overdrive. Fast on the heels of this pivotal moment in my life story, I searched through the Yellow Pages and found an organization that sounded very much as if they would teach meditation: the Vedanta Society.

Some time after that, my stint with the Vedantists ended up with me living in the Hindu-based convent that had been designed in imitation of the Carmelite convents of the Catholics. Unfortunately, the women were terribly mean. The swami trusted me, but they were jealous of that, on the one hand, (later admitting that they were afraid I would "run the convent from the bottom" on the other.)  I did everything I could to show my love to them, and they were not having any of it. Between the stress of their constant perturbation, and all of the physical work, my body took a real "hit" and I was in a wheelchair for some weeks. 

Divine Mother

by

Sonika Agarwal

via Unsplash

The elderly head of the convent went to the Swami and lied to him, saying that I was "faking" an injury. (The same illness that I suffer from today.)  They spread rumors about me among the devotees, claiming that I had been gobbling up all the chocolate candies when the truth is that I have never, to this day, cared much for chocolate and hadn't eaten ANY of it. (Later, one of the senior nuns went on vacation for a couple weeks and the chocolates just SAT there. I learned about all this later.)

Whenever someone complains that women are not allowed to be priests in the Catholic Church, I think about this time, and many others, when the gossiping of women has damaged me - not merely in how I felt about myself and my relationships with other people - but in the very real affect that it had on my ability to function and actually survive. Of course, there are some people who say that women gossip because they have so little power in our world, but the more power women have been given over the years of my life, there has not been a lessening of the tendency of women to spread tales. Yes, men do it as well, but it hasn't been nearly as frequent or as toxic. Women in my life have used lies, innuendo and their colorful imaginations to disrupt my well being, in several arenas.                            

While living as a nun, I started reading the beautiful works of and stories about the Catholic and Orthodox saints and "doctors" of the church, and I just fell in love with the whole thing. I came to realize that every spot of emptiness and incompleteness that was lacking in the Vedanta faith, was answered and filled with the Catholic. I intended to leave the Hindu convent and try to enter a Catholic one. In any case I knew that I could not, indeed did not believe in the Hindu deities. The formless God of the Vedanta did not answer the yearnings of my heart.

Photo by Nick Castelli

on Unsplash

As told in more detail elsewhere, I did try to become a Catholic nun, but I could not even get them to BAPTIZE me because of ignorant prejudice. The nun in charge of the class had this weird idea that because I had been divorced after my stint with the Scientologists, I would have to endure several years of a Catholic annulment before baptism. She was completely wrong and completely adamant (as wrong people usually are!) 

At that time, however, I did not know how to process it. I didn't know any Catholics or other Christians and had no clue who to approach to fix this ridiculous impasse. I had left the convent to become a Catholic nun, and was distraught. I decided to get baptized by the Episcopalians and put aside my strong feelings for a monastic life. I wondered if God was telling me that He did not WANT me in that life, that He wanted something else. Was I supposed to be married? I wanted to do what He wanted for me.

Meanwhile, I hadn't a cent to my name, no one to help me get my secular life re-established, and a lot of work ahead of me, so I got on with the task of finding employment, working and saving. I was 40 by this time, and it was too late to think about college or career. I worked as a litigation secretary and office manager and did the best I could, taking the bus from Hollywood to Beverly Hills and back again, every day, until I saved enough money to buy a car.

BUS INTERIOR 

BY ASH GERLACHE 

ON UNSPLASH

One of the Vedanta devotees had offered to share her apartment with me, and it wasn't until after I moved out, a year later, that I learned she had charged me for the entire cost of the rent, while she tormented me with her bossiness. At one point, she moved her bed into the living room so she could use the master bedroom as her private "meditation" room, even though we lived half a block from the Temple. I was stuck, meanwhile, in a tiny, closet-sized room with no air conditioning and a super tiny window at the top of the wall, restricted from entering or leaving the apartment every time that woman took a nap. It was frustrating experience that saddened me. I had thought we were friends. ( I did not know, at that time, that I suffer from Asperger's Syndrome, which is an antique term for a high-functioning version of autism. Other folks can often sense our vulnerability and gullible, loving natures. They know we can be conned into all sorts of things just by befriending us.)

Every time I think about this particular disappointment with a person who pretended to be "helping" me with one hand while she picked my pocket with the other, I just had to remind myself that this type of selfishness is common in the world. Even though this woman did not have to work to pay her rent, for some reason, she had taken advantage of me when I was in a very vulnerable position. She had worked a little in the past, apparently, and she had wealthy parents who supported her in some fashion. She did not need to take advantage of a destitute woman with no such support.

Reading about the love of Christ while enduring the selfish cruelty of the Vedantists was a real learning experience.

I was seeking God, peace and blessedness, while my contemporaries were pursuing professional careers, money and real estate. The practical difficulties that I have at age 70 would have been much easier to accommodate if I'd taken another route and gone after money instead.

Some years after leaving the Vedantists, my physical problems that had first become visible while I was in the convent, worsened and multiplied, and within the next 10 years, I was fully disabled and had to stop working outside the home when I was 49.

Photo by Zachary Kyra-Derksen

on Unsplash

So, shortly after moving to the high desert of New Mexico from California, I found myself too disabled to work before I was even 50. I had not had time to even properly accustom myself to the town before I became home-bound. The monastic inclinations I had put aside a decade earlier began knocking on the door of my consciousness in full force. I decided to make lemonade out of lemons by dedicating the remainder of my life to God, as an independent hermit. Within three years, I was able to enter the Catholic Church, after decades of wanting to do it.

So - this is how I find myself rather poor, unmarried, without family to support me, and without any religious assistance either!  My pursuit of the Divine has left me financially bankrupt but spiritually rich, and I wouldn't exchange my wisdom and experience for all the money in the world, despite the great difficulties I endure on a daily basis. Nobody ever said that sickness and poverty were going to be easy.

Many women who enter religious life have financial support of family or institution. Some families are happy to support them in it, and I have known quite a few who, while professing the life of poverty, are actually quite wealthy. I don't begrudge it of them because they need that support, as the men are in charge of all the purse strings in this world. I'm glad these women have the support. I am just not one of them. I need to be clear about that.

I was supposed to have been one of those ladies supported by family money, except that, after my father got Alzheimer's, I was written out of my father's will by a woman he had cheated on during their entire relationship. Then he died under suspicious circumstances, and other people are now spending my inheritance.  It is a "morality play," but in real life. The moral is: Don't cheat on the woman in your life because, if you get dementia or another illness that makes you vulnerable, you do not know how your inamorata may retaliate.

My entire life, he had consistently told me, "when I die, kid, yer gonna be rich!"  The doctor that signed his death certificate never saw him, in life or in death, according to my sister. His body was quickly cremated, before I even knew he had passed on, and what could I do about it? No one saw the body before the evidence was cremated.

I had planned to get myself through my difficult, pain-wracked disability and ultimate death with the inheritance that my father had promised me for decades and, at first, the scam perpetrated on me and my poor father was a terrible blow.  But I keep telling myself that the humiliation of being forced to beg for groceries is good for the soul. 

In February of 2023, I celebrated 20 years of living as an independent monastic solitary. I didn't know at that time what form my vocation would take after that. It is very difficult to continue without support, particularly since I am physically suffering. 20 years of unremitting physical pain, due to inherited arthritic conditions, a light version of ehlers danlos,  and other physical damage, have taken their toll, but probably no more so than if my asceticism had been artificially practiced with a hair shirt and continual voluntary fasts.

PRESENT DAY SITUATION

I am writing a novel and producing some paintings. I have sold both types of art in the past, as well as jewelry items I produced. So I hope to have a better financial condition in future, if possible. In the meantime, if you would like to help support a poor hermit's spiritual and creative contributions to the world, the "DONATE" button above, on the right, under my photo, still works. BUT IF YOU YOURSELF ARE LIMITED IN FUNDS: PLEASE DON'T STRAIN YOUR BUDGET.

Otherwise, I am very grateful for any help you can give. I have an Amazon wish list for these things, AS WELL AS art supplies necessary to make paintings, rosaries and jewelry for sale. I will research how to sell them online, but I am beginning talks with the manager of the parish gift store for the production of personalized bookmarkers, bracelets and painting .

My parish church is located in the oldest part of town and was built in the 17th century! We have a bookstore that is open throughout the week and which is very popular with local Catholics, and many visitors to our town. The manager purchases most of her wares from local artists.

Amethyst & Pewter Celtic Rosary

St. Margaret of Scotland Centerpiece

Thistle charm

Paternoster beads: silver tree-of-life

(Made for my use/practice piece)

Amazon has my address and will mail to me directly, once the items have been paid for. Just click on the following link:

AMAZON WISH LIST

As mentioned elsewhere, my landlord (the City of Albuquerque) which is SUPPOSEDLY renting apartments under a "low income program", has suddenly and drastically bumped up the prices of the rent in this complex where I have lived for 20 years, and I am sadly distracted by the need to find the money so I can continue to afford to live here.  I was ALREADY having a difficult time when they gave me this distressing news.

In addition to the financial strain, my landlord has demonstrated ignorance of the Fair Housing laws and a real antipathy toward the idea of accommodating disabilities. I have had to file a HUD complaint and get an attorney to help me to keep the landlord from stranding me in my apartment during upcoming construction which is slated to last a month. Their plan would require me to perform some physical tasks I can't do in order to leave the house. I am finding that most people are insensitive to the issues that disabled folks have to face every day.

A couple months ago, I won a city-wide art contest that relieved me of the anxiety around my ABILITY to produce art, due to my blindness in one eye. I have been reassured that, despite the lack of depth perception, I CAN still produce art, particularly with the help of the magnifying lamps.

In addition to selling my paintings and sketches in the past, I have also made rosaries, and jewelry items. I hope to pick that up again and sell them locally, mostly at the parish book store, mentioned above. THOSE supplies are also on the wish list.

Practice jewelry for local store

As for my primary activities, I have a routine of prayer, meditation, contemplation, and reading. At some point, I may open up this routine to the participation of other solitaries. I know there are many elderly ladies who live alone and are assiduously practicing a prayer-centered life. One day soon, I will open up my YouTube channel for them so we may pray together.

God bless us all.

Silver Rose

July 3, 2024
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