The Experience of Time in a Poustinia

“In the poustinia time goes very quickly, and an hour is a lifetime and a lifetime is an hour.”

One way to think about our experience of time is as a measurement of how much change takes place – in our surroundings, in our thought. Slow things down, lock yourself in a room without access to your typical distractions, and see what it does to your experience of time. “An hour is a lifetime and a lifetime is an hour.”

The solitary Catholic retreat house I go to for individual retreats places a copy of Poustinia in every cabin. In Doherty’s words, it’s a place I go “to enter the great silence of God.”

Poustinia | Hunger for Silence, Adapting Old to New

“Let the one who goes there be always truthful about his motives and not go there simply to have a good sleep or a day away from the tensions of life. Let him go there to enter the great silence of God, and to pray. If one enters for any other reason, however well rationalized, the poustinia will not be a blessing upon him; it might be a curse…

Thus the phenomenon of the Western poustinia will slowly unfold itself. As the apostolate grows in wisdom and grace we might be sent people who really wish to live as close as possible to the Russian ideal. Then again, perhaps this ideal is gone. It is too early to say. But I think that this hunger for the silence of God, this passivity of the silent soul, is going to come back…

I personally do not know how to adapt from the old to the new. But God does.”

Poustinia | Pilgrims of the Absolute

“The more I try to explain the poustinia and the Russian idea of it, the more I find myself floundering. I find it an exceedingly difficult task because what I speak about is so very foreign to the Western mind of today, especially to those on the North American continent. Yet I know that the poustinia is one answer, at least, for this Western culture which depends so much on cerebration and intellectualism, and has a need to sift everything through the mind and examine everything with almost scientific precision.

If there is anything that can help to rectify the defects of such a mentality it is precisely the poustinia experience of the Eastern spirituality. For it is neither Eastern nor Western but simply Christian. It is the eternal hunger of men for God whom they seek, whether they know it or not, as pilgrims of the Absolute.

Every man is a pilgrim on the road of life. Some, and there are more than we know of, are like the poustiniki, truly seeking the Absolute: God!”

Poustinia | There is But One Tragedy

“There is but one tragedy: not to be a saint.”

Poustinia and Poustinik

Poustinia is the Russian word for “desert.” It is also used in Russian Orthodoxy to refer to a place where a solitary goes to seek ongoing silence and solitude before God. A solitary monk who lives in a poustinia (usually a simple, small structure) is called a poustinik. In Russia, a poustinik typically lives on the outskirts of a town and is available for the townspeople to come, meet, and ask for direction or specific help – even for things like lending a hand in the field during harvest season. The poustinik is a spiritual director of sorts, and also makes him or herself available for the practical needs of the community.

Catherine Doherty, founder of Madonna House in Canada, wrote a classic book about the concept of poustinia, simply called Poustinia.