Beauty, Solitude, Community, Mentorship

The Monterey coast where I live is a perfect place to write. The waters are protected by a patchwork of marine sanctuary designations, and much of the shoreline through my little town of Pacific Grove is either a state or a city park. I regularly see herons strutting along the shore and whale blows in the distance. The health of the bay — with its thousands of otters, seals, sea lions, Rizzo’s dolphins, along with its countless seabirds — ensures the health of the land and imbues the whole area with a vitality I’ve felt on no other seaside.

From the grassy expanse of Lover’s Point, walking north and west along the coast and around Point Pinos — with its iconic lighthouse that inspired the To the Lighthouse logo — you leave the Monterey Bay for the open ocean. There, king waves gain strength, the water takes on a more dramatic character, the air temperature drops ten degrees, and the winds pick up.

The Asilomar conference center, where I hosted the first To the Lighthouse writing retreat last year, sits at the end of this journey. The center is fronted by a wide swath of protected dunes, which is itself fronted by the Asilomar State Marine Reserve and State Park. (Asilomar means “refuge by the sea”.) You can walk a pedestrian path the entire length from Lover’s Point to Asilomar State Beach, among the most beautiful stretches of coast I’ve ever seen.

And beauty matters. It inspires and propels any creative endeavor, including writing. Without that kind of inspiration, we dry up. To me, the beauty and solitude of nature are intertwined and essential. This fall, I wrote about the necessity of that kind of solitude for nourishing creativity. “A room of one’s own” and the quiet to let “the line of thought dip deep into the stream” to quote Virginia Woolf (twice) are needed for a creative life, which, as she points out, means nothing less than living in the presence of reality. I am perennially drawn to both solitude and beauty. I’ve organized my life in significant ways to ensure I get both.

What is new for me is to recognize two other essential components for a creative life, the two that involve other people: community and mentorship.

The Buddha’s attendant and cousin, Ananda, once said to him, Master, I understand that the community of monks is half the holy life. The Buddha responded, Don’t say that Ananda, that the community of monks is half the holy life. It is not. It is the whole of the holy life.

The Buddha had a way of offering exactly the teaching the student needed, and for this story, I am that student. I love how solitary writing is. Although we certainly need the space and stillness to create, it is also true that who we spend time with shapes, to a large extent, what we talk about and think about. The company we keep does much to determines how we live. Time with other writers is time oriented toward the work — the act of creation, the real. It affirms our commitment to our writing. Sometimes we can fulfill the need for community by reading, but more often, we need actual physical beings to gather with us, over our shared love of the written word.

The photo above is just such a community, the writers who came together for last year’s inaugural retreat.

Finally, mentorship. Fearing I would not find it, I have, in the past, shied away from looking for it. In my MFA program, mentorship was forced on me, and my thesis advisor, Stuart Nadler, changed both my work and my perspective on the necessity of guiding teachers.

Another mentor I hold in the highest esteem is the award-winning novelist Mark Sarvas. For over a decade, Mark has mentored hundreds of writers, in formal classrooms, in private workshops, and one on one. His students have found agents and published books, including some best-selling ones, but more importantly, they keep writing, keep improving, keep honing their craft. Please read his many glowing student testimonials. One of my favorites ends: “Run, do not walk, if you have a chance to work with Sarvas.”

That’s Mark on the right, next to Tara, both gesturing with a mudra of transmission. Farther up, Mark sits on the left, in front of the fireplace at our Asilomar lodge, holding forth in a lecture “Against Craft”. This year’s retreat is Thursday - Sunday, March 30 - April 2. There will be two craft lectures, one-on-one meetings with Mark, and days of solitude alternating with nights of community. (And yummy food, which may be a fifth essential component. There’s a Woolf quote about that, too.) There are a few spaces left for this year’s retreat. If you’re in need of a room of your own to write, I hope you’ll come.

Whatever creative endeavor you undertake, I hope you are nourished by both solitude and community, surrounded by beauty, and have at least one Mark Sarvas on your side.

Yours in all things literary,

Jennifer