Lifestyle
Opinion: What I find in solitude and silence on the cliffs of Big Sur
As a student, like many of us, I liked to read Henry David Thoreau. Many of his ringing one-liners thrilled me and got copied down in my commonplace book, but there was one sentence I hardly registered: “Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour.” In my early 20s, my life was all about action, movement, exploration: Contemplation was for the aged in their rocking chairs.
Within a few years, though, real life began to catch up with me: I’d completed my first four years in an office; I’d fallen in love with the woman I was going to marry; I’d been lucky enough to see much of the globe, from Cuba to Tibet. More dramatically, my house had burned to the ground in a wildfire, and I’d lost not only all my possessions, but also the handwritten notes that were the basis for my next three books. My future, in short, as much as my past.
After weeks of sleeping on the floor of a friend’s house, I made my way up (at another friend’s suggestion) to a Benedictine hermitage, four hours north along the California coast, just south of the hamlet of Lucia. I would try to forget that 15 years of Anglican schooling as a boy in England had left me most interested in traditions from the far side of the world. What I found at the top of the mountain, the minute I stepped out of my car, was a radiant view over the blue Pacific, freedom from all distraction (no TV, no cellphones, no internet) and a day that seemed to last for months. I could read, take walks, scribble off letters or, best of all, do nothing at all. The roar of the highway was far below, and for most of the day, even amid birdsong and tolling bells, the main sound was of living silence.
I’d stumbled, in short, into the realm of contemplation. I’ve never meditated, and as a writer on place, I was often in motion, crisscrossing the globe every week. But now I was invited just to sit and watch — not as I did when writing, but with no end in sight at all. And not to think, since my thoughts subsided as soon as I left clamor behind; just to attend. To observe the world, perhaps, as if it were the central scripture.
The results were quite startling. I was no longer angry with that friend I’d been raging against when I drove up; he, too, was probably just trying to find some peace in an overstressed life. Memories rose up — sometimes poignant, sometimes erotic and piercing — and they held and possessed me as they never could when I was driving along the freeway, preoccupied with my next appointment. Death itself didn’t seem quite so terrifying in a landscape of rock and redwood and unbroken ocean — and in a silence that seemed no less changeless. It was instant joy, in short, the kind that lingers even when things are difficult.
I was being asked to offer just $30 a night, which covered hot lunches, hot showers, books and fruit and salad and bread, and the most heart-expanding views along the famously beautiful coastline I’d ever discovered.
It’s not surprising, perhaps, that very soon I reserved a trailer on the hillside for two weeks, and then three. The monks were great company and bracingly undogmatic; they were confident each of us would find what we needed here, whatever names we chose to give to it. I could drive down to a pay phone at the motel along the highway if an emergency arose — but emergencies are never so common as we imagine. Of course it was not easy to leave my mother or my wife-to-be behind, but it felt worthwhile if I could bring back to them someone who was fresh and attentive and brimming with delight, and not the distracted and overburdened soul they otherwise saw, grumbling, “Not right now!”
At the same time, I could never ignore that sentence in Thoreau, whom I was reading much more carefully now in silence: How to make my life worthy of what I saw and who I was — and wasn’t — in this space of contemplation? I wasn’t a monk and never would be. My mother was calling for company after her husband’s sudden death; my loved ones in Japan needed emotional as well as financial support; I had to pay the bills.
Maybe I could try to remake my life a little in the light of what I’d seen in silence? I surprised both my sweetheart and myself by moving to Japan and a tiny, two-room apartment, crowded with her, her 12-year-old son and her 10-year-old daughter; I’d realized, as Thoreau reminded me, that “a man is rich in proportion to the things he can afford to leave alone.” In this cramped space, I’d have the luxury of living without a car or a big house, free of constant distractions. I began to pick up some of the wise writers in the Western tradition — Meister Eckhart, Etty Hillesum — no longer convinced that Sufis or Buddhists owned a monopoly on wisdom. And I resolved to try to go on retreat for three days every season, simply to clear my head, root myself in what mattered and remember what I loved.
Plus, of course, to get perspective on the world and my life in it, none of which I could see in the midst of all the tumult. Some friends take runs every day, or swims, for the same reason; some cook or sew or golf. Almost any practice that allows you to open space in your day and your head seems invaluable, especially as the world accelerates, but it was a particular luxury to spend three days and nights with nothing I had to do. Even on holiday, I’m usually captive to my plans.
As the years went on — there have been almost 34 of them now, and more than 100 retreats — the nature of my days in silence began to mature. Not only did silence bring those I cared about close to me — and clearer — than they might be when in the same room; it also turned the strangers along the monastery road into trusted friends. We were all here for a common purpose, and it wasn’t usually a text or a teacher or even a doctrine; it was simply a human longing (or intimation). I grew ever closer to the monks, a wildly talented and friendly collection of scholars, musicians, artists and chemists; I realized I had a connection with everyone met in silence — even if I knew next to nothing of their jobs or their backgrounds — that I seldom had with people met along a busy sidewalk.
I came to understand what Thoreau knew, like all contemplatives: The point of being alone is to be able to give more to others and to be a more useful member of society. “I am naturally no hermit,” he had written in “Walden”; “I think that I love society as much as most.” I didn’t tell anyone to go to my particular retreat, but I did sometimes remind friends that three days away from distraction could clarify their lives. Those who had spent time in silence weren’t surprised when I explained that it was being alone in the ringing quiet that moved me, at long last, and at the not-so-tender age of 42, to get married.
I never regret my life in the world, chronicling its movements and the explosion of possibilities our grandparents could not have imagined. But I hope never to stop returning to my friends in the Hermitage; at times I’ve even stayed with the monks in their Enclosure, there seeing that their lives are all hard work and constant activity to ensure that their guests can enjoy absolute peace. I can’t imagine a more important investment.
One day I was making my little trailer clean, polishing its every surface and wiping the sink down till it shone — as I seldom do at home — when I noticed something that stayed with me (no detail seems trivial in silence). I had to squeeze only a single drop of dishwashing liquid into my glass of water and the whole thing turned blue. It doesn’t take much to transform a life.
Pico Iyer is the author of “The Art of Stillness” and the forthcoming “Aflame: Learning From Silence.”
Neve Campbell in Scream 7.
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The OG Scream Queen Neve Campbell returns. Scream 7 re-centers the franchise back on Sidney Prescott. She has a new life, a family, and lots of baggage. You know the drill: Someone dressing up as the masked slasher Ghostface comes for her, her family and friends. There’s lots of stabbing and murder and so many red herrings it’s practically a smorgasbord.
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Abriana Vicioso is the host of the Flower Hour, which takes place monthly.
(Jennifer McCord / For The Times)
Each flower carries a personal history. For Abriana Vicioso, the calla lily was her parents’ wedding flower — a symbol of her mother’s beauty. “She had this big, beautiful white calla lily in her hair,” Vicioso says. “I love my parents. They’re the reason I’m here. I’ll never forget where I came from.”
The Flower Hour begins with Vicioso announcing, with a warm smile: “Today is about touching grass.” The florist-by-trade gestures behind her to hundreds of flowers contained in buckets — blue thistles, ivory anemones and calla lilies painted silver — all twisted and unfurling into the air. “Tonight is going to be so sweet and intimate,” Vicioso says, eyeing the beautiful chaos at her feet. A grin buds across her face.
Moments before the workshop, participants sit at candlelit tables exchanging horoscopes and comparing their favorite flowers. A mention of the illustrious bird-of-paradise flower elicits coos and awe from the women. Izamar Vazquez, who is from Jalisco, Mexico, reveals her fondness for roses, which make her feel connected to her Mexican roots.
Vicioso hosts her flower-themed wellness workshop near the iconic Original Los Angeles Flower Market in downtown L.A. In January, the first Flower Hour event sold out, prompting her to make it a monthly series. Vicioso describes the event as a “three-part journey” where participants are invited to drink herbal tea, smoke rose-petal-rolled cannabis joints and create a floral arrangement. “The guide is to connect with the medicine of flowers,” Vicioso says.
Rose petal joints, tea and flower arranging are all part of The Flower Hour event’s offerings.
The event is hosted at the Art Club, a membership-based co-working space. “The Flower Hour is really beautiful. Everyone gets to explore their creativity while meeting new people,” says Lindsay Williams, the co-owner of the Art Club.
The idea for Flower Hour came to Vicioso during a conversation with her mother. “We joke all the time that flowers were destined to make their way into my life,” she says. She works as a florist and models on the side, even appearing in the pages of Vogue. Vicioso grew up in a Caribbean household, where flowers and offerings were part of daily life. “In my culture and religion, a lot of my family practices — an Afro-Caribbean religion — we build altars.”
Like many cultures, flowers carry sentimental value in her religion. “I’m Caribbean, so a lot of my family practices a Yoruba religion, which comes from Africa. In the Caribbean, it’s well known as Santería.”
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After a difficult year and a breakup, Vicioso wanted to marry her love of flowers with community building. Because Vicioso uses cannabis medicinally, the workshop naturally includes a smoking component. “My family has smoked cannabis for a lot of reasons for a long time. It’s a really healing plant,” she explains.
In the workshop, even the cannabis gets the floral treatment. Vicioso presents her rose-petal-wrapped joints on a silver platter at each table. She rolled each by hand. “If you’ve never smoked a rose-petal-rolled joint, the difference with this is it’s going to have roses that have a slight tobacco effect,” she announces.
During the workshop, Vicioso stresses the importance of buying cannabis from local vendors. The cannabis provided was purchased from a Northern Californian vendor. The wellness workshop aims to reclaim the healing ritual of smoking cannabis. “This is a plant that has been commercialized,” Vicioso says. “There’s a lot of Black and Brown people who are in jail for this plant.”
The resulting workshop is what Vicioso describes as “an immersive wellness experience that is the intersection of wellness, creativity, community and an appreciation of flowers.” The workshop serves as a reminder to enjoy Earth’s innate beauty in the form of flowers — including cannabis. “It’s this gift that the universe gave us for free and that I have this deep connection with,” Vicioso says.
Conversation cards to generate discussion among participants (top, letf). The workshop serves as a “third space” for Angelenos to engage in tactile creativity and community building outside of traditional nightlife settings.
After enjoying lavender chamomile tea and smoking a joint, Vicioso introduces the flowers to the group before inviting them to pick their own. She emphasizes each flower’s personality traits, describing green dianthus as a “Dr. Seuss” plant. Then, there are calla lilies with their “main character moment.” It gets personal. “Start thinking of a flower in your life that you can discover,” she says. “If you’re feeling like you need inspiration, you can always remember that these flowers have stories.”
Vicioso infuses wisdom into her instruction on floral arrangements: There are no mistakes. Let the flowers tell you where they want to go, she urges. Intuition will be your guide — the wilder, the better.
“Hecho in Mexico” reads a sticker on a bunch of green stems. “Like me,” says Vazquez with a laugh. “They’re all doing their own thing. Like a family,” she says later, arranging stems.
The Flower Hour participants and Vicioso, center, chat as they build their own floral arrangements at the sold-out event.
Two participants — Vazquez and Rebeca Alvarado — are friends who run a floral design company together called Izza Rose. Like Vicioso, the friends have a connection to flowers through their Latin American culture. They met Vicioso in the floral industry and were overjoyed to discover her workshop.
“This is a great way to connect with other people,” says Vazquez.
Alvarado agrees, adding: “You’re getting to know people outside of going to bars. You can connect in different ways when there’s an activity.”
Vazquez uses flowers to stay connected to her Mexican heritage, adding that she prefers to support Mexican vendors. In recent months, the downtown L.A. flower market has struggled to recover from ongoing ICE raids. “Some are scared to come back,” says Vazquez.
Hand-rolled cannabis joints wrapped in rose petals are presented on a silver platter at The ArtClub (top, right). The Flower Hour aims to reclaim the healing rituals of cannabis and flowers.
Another participant, Barbara Rios, was attracted to the workshop for stress relief. “You can hang out with your friends, but it’s nice to do things with your hands,” she says. “I work a stressful job, and it’s nice to have that third space that we’re all craving.”
On this February night, the participants were predominantly women, save for one man. In the future, Vicioso hopes that more men learn to engage with flowers. “There’s a statistic about men receiving flowers for the first time at their funerals, and I think we have changed that,” she says.
To conclude the workshop, Vicioso encourages participants to build lasting friendships and incorporate flower arranging into their daily practice — even if it’s just with a small, inexpensive bouquet.
“Get some flowers together, go to the park, hang out with each other and hang out with me,” she says. Participants leave with flower arrangements in hand. In the darkness of the night air, it briefly looks as though the women carry silver calla lilies that are blooming from their palms.
An underwater view shows US’ Lilly King competing in a heat of the women’s 200m breaststroke swimming event during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at the Paris La Defense Arena in Nanterre, west of Paris, on July 31, 2024. (Photo by François-Xavier MARIT / AFP) (Photo by FRANCOIS-XAVIER MARIT/AFP via Getty Images)
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This week’s show was recorded in Bloomington, Indiana with host Peter Sagal, judge and scorekeeper Bill Kurtis, Not My Job guest Lilly King and panelists Alonzo Bodden, Josh Gondelman, and Faith Salie. Click the audio link above to hear the whole show.
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Lightning Fill In The Blank
All the news we couldn’t fit anywhere else
Predictions
Our panelists predict, after American Girls, what’ll be the next toy to get an update.
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