In the long history of man’s search for a creative source the wilderness has been an important stopping place. Whether to speak with Mother Earth, or Great Father, or listen to the songs of nature’s muses, the solitude of the mountains and deserts has nurtured the meaningful side of our inner experience and the arts for ages.
Lao-tzu, Moses, Heraclitus, Gautama Buddha, Jesus of Nazareth, Bodhidharma, Francis of Assisi, Milarepa, and Leonardo da Vinci have all received deep inspiration from solitude found in the wilderness or in hermitage.
Creative solitude has been significant to the work of many great artists and writers—including the Romantic poets, Impressionist painters, William Blake, Gauguin, Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Audubon, Georgia O’Keeffe, Ansel Adams, Carl Sandburg and Edward Abbey.
T.S. Eliot, Albert Einstein, Paul Klee, Jackson Pollock, Alan Watts, Thomas Merton, Ram Dass, Chögyam Trungpa, and Allen Ginsberg have addressed the mystery and power in the present “now,” and focused on how the artist, or man, must seek a spiritual authenticity, in order to gain the power of creative expression in art and science.
Contemplative Retreat
In both the East and the West many traditions of spiritual solitude have served the search for realization. In the caves of Orthodox Christian desert fathers, in the temples and secluded huts of Buddhist yogis, and on hilltops with vision-questing warriors, the practice of contemplative retreat has endured. In our modern age we must include these developmental forms and methods that provide the broadest access to these important processes—distinctly contrasting the contemporary cultural juggernaut.
Intrinsic Mind is introducing a unique form of solitary retreat for writer, artist and anyone pursuing personal authenticity and insight. I*M’s founder, directors and advisers have studied and trained in various creative disciplines which include meditation. The organization’s plan is designed to provide a loosely-structured contemplative environment focusing one’s direct experience into the creative process, the subtleties of experience, and subsequent appropriate action, without belief or dogma.