Tag: mystic

On the Radio: The True Spirit of Poet and Mystic Robert Lax

The information below is from New Dimensions Radio, which will broadcast this one-hour interview over its affiliated stations in the U.S. and other countries in mid-February.  To see if the program will be on your local station, check the list on the New Dimensions website.  If not, you can buy the download now for $1.99 or downloaded it free from the website between Feb. 17 and Mar. 1.  This is the most in-depth interview I’ve done yet on Robert Lax.

The True Spirit Of Poet And Mystic Robert Lax with Michael N. McGregor

$1.99

Product: MP3 Download
Program Number: 3566
Host: Phil Cousineau
Interview Date: 11/19/2015
Length: 1 Hour

MP3 Download

Robert Lax is one of the great experimental poets of the 20th century, a daring and original avant-garde writer who was sought out as a sage and a mentor. He was a circus performer, a clown and a juggler, and well known for being a close friend of Thomas Merton. McGregor knew and loved this man and wrote a biography to make this remarkable man’s life and works better known to more people. He says of Lax, “Robert Lax was the most significant person I’d ever met…I felt his life was unusual and fascinating and it was a good opportunity to explore someone so unique and special in both a spiritual and artistic way.” As Lax searched for a vocation he decided that perhaps a person following a religion of love ought to be a prophet of love. Lax had the courage to go his own way and did not follow any shortcuts in his pursuit of truth and God. McGregor interprets Lax’s philosophy of life as one in which “love goes in all directions. It takes you deeper into yourself and it takes you into other people’s lives and into your interactions with them. He felt that life is meant to be a unity and all things in harmony. That didn’t mean just all people in harmony, that meant our interior in harmony with our exterior, our sleeping and dreaming in harmony with our waking consciousness, all things coming together in that way.” (hosted by Phil Cousineau)

Bio

Michael N. McGregor is a Professor of English and Creative Writing at Portland State University. He has lectured at universities, conferences, and community events on both Robert Lax and Thomas Merton, and is a member of Biographers International Organization and the International Thomas Merton Society.

Michael N. McGregor is the author of:

To learn more about the work of Michael McGregor go to www.michaelnmcgregor.com.

Topics Explored in This Dialogue

  • Why Michael McGregor pursued the life and work of Robert Lax
  • What made Robert Lax such an unusual man
  • How Robert Lax used to enjoy going to jazz clubs with Thomas Merton
  • How as a boy Robert Lax was influenced by the circus. His father would take him to the train tracks and he would watch the circus being unloaded.
  • How Robert Lax felt the Cristiani family demonstrate, by their circus performances, how to be closer to God
  • How a break down precipitated Lax into a more authentic life
  • What is the value of slowing down
  • Who is Thomas Merton and how did he and Lax collaborate
  • How Lax lived a life untethered to things

The Hermit and the Mystic: Wisdom from the Woods

A friend sent me a link to a GQ article about a man who lived alone in the Maine woods for 27 years.  The only thing he said to anyone in all those years was the single word “Hi” to a hiker he passed one day.  Although the article is titled “The Strange & Curious Tale of the Last True Hermit” and the author, Michael Finkel, refers to the man, Christopher Knight, repeatedly as a hermit, when asked if he was one, Knight said:

“When I came out of the woods they applied the label hermit to me. Strange idea to me. I had never thought of myself as a hermit. Then I got worried. For I knew with the label hermit comes the idea of crazy.”

Knight had been nicknamed the North Pond Hermit by people who owned the summer cabins from which he stole food and propane and other needs without being seen.  According to my dictionary’s definition—“a person who lives alone in a lonely or secluded spot, often from religious motives; recluse”—Knight certainly was a hermit.  He lived alone in a tent surrounded by boulders and a thicket of brush and trees it was hard to see through.  But he denied having religious motives, or any religious feelings at all.  And he made it clear to Finkel that he never felt lonely.

I’ve been thinking about the label “hermit” over the past few years because some have called the man I wrote my book about, Robert Lax, a hermit.  I’ve never been comfortable with this label for Lax because he didn’t retreat to a “lonely or secluded spot” or separate himself from people, except to contemplate and write.  I’ve come to realize, though, that when people use the word “hermit” they often mean “mystic”: a hermit, to their mind, being someone who retreats from the world to meditate or pray and reach a higher consciousness.

I’m more comfortable calling Lax a mystic because there’s no question he attained “intuitive knowledge of spiritual truths through meditation” (the dictionary again).  And, despite Knight’s rejection of religion, despite the thievery that kept him alive, I think he became a bit of a mystic, too.

The only time he prayed, Knight said, was when the temperature went below negative twenty degrees. (“That’s when you do have religion,” he said.  “You do pray. You pray for warmth.”) But he meditated from time to time, especially when he feared death, and his quotes in the GQ article suggest he came to understandings of life that usually come only to mystics.  Here are a couple of the more intriguing ones:

“‘What I miss most [Knight said] is somewhere between quiet and solitude. What I miss most is stillness.’ He said he’d watched for years as a shelf mushroom grew on the trunk of a Douglas fir in his camp.”  (An ability to be completely still and completely in the moment, attuned to the natural world.)

“Solitude did increase my perception [Knight said]. But here’s the tricky thing—when I applied my increased perception to myself, I lost my identity. With no audience, no one to perform for, I was just there. There was no need to define myself; I became irrelevant. The moon was the minute hand, the seasons the hour hand. I didn’t even have a name. I never felt lonely. To put it romantically: I was completely free.”  (The disappearance of the ego and a resulting freedom from the self.)

While waiting in jail for the court’s decision on his theft charges, Knight said:

“I am retreating into silence as a defensive move…I am surprised by the amount of respect this garners me. That silence intimidates puzzles me. Silence is to me normal, comfortable.”

And:

“Sitting here in jail, I don’t like what I see in the society I’m about to enter. I don’t think I’m going to fit in. It’s too loud. Too colorful. The lack of aesthetics. The crudeness. The inanities. The trivia.”

The article ends with Knight being released from jail to live with his mother but wishing he could simply return to the woods. I’m reminded of the custom among some Native American tribes to have their young retreat to secluded places on their own to find themselves in some way.  What if we had this kind of custom in America, or at least allowed people like Knight to live in nature undisturbed?  What insights might we obtain that we as a society desperately need–especially in this time of superficiality, noise, violence and greed?

Note: One of my new projects is a book about a year my wife and I spent in a small cabin in the woods in the San Juan Islands: what that time and way of living showed me.