Discover
When you’re a hermit residing alone within the Italian Alps, you monitor the climate. Snow means you may’t get groceries for per week. Rain will nourish the vegetable backyard but additionally erode the hillside and ship water into each crack within the roof. When the thunderstorms roll in, you get off the path to keep away from the lightning.
On a chilly morning in Could 2024, Johannes Schwarz stood on the slender balcony of his hut, registering the clouds that stuffed the sky like cotton wool. It had rained all week and confirmed no signal of ceasing. Schwarz was a towering determine. He wore a beard right down to his chest and a black fleece that lined the highest half of his priestly gown.
In Schwarz’s earlier life, the climate was an app on his cellphone that didn’t impression his each day life past telling him to seize an umbrella. Now it was a sequence of regularly altering realities that put him in contact with one thing that felt pure and elemental. The rain meant he must write inside all day and make do with the groceries he already had: For dinner he would pull apples and flour out of the storage room to make a tart.
In any other case you simply turn into one other wild, bearded man who lives by himself within the forest.
For the previous eight years, Schwarz, an Austrian priest of the Archdiocese of Vaduz in Liechtenstein, has spent a part of the yr in a hermitage on Monte Viso, a mountain wedged within the southwestern Italian Alps close to the French border. Schwarz had come to stay on the altitude of three,900 ft to entry a world faraway from the muddle of each day life and parish duties, one the place he may pursue nearer contact to the unseen. “Actuality, in the event you actually search it out, can have solutions about who we’re, how we’re, and what we’re known as to be,” wrote Schwarz from his desk adorned with portraits of Catholic saints.
On the mountain, Schwarz lives what he calls a “prayer life,” by which he doesn’t imply that he prays on a regular basis. To Schwarz, prayer means “elevating your thoughts to God.” Gardening as prayer. Lecture notes as prayer. Meditation within the wood chapel he constructed himself as prayer. “If you wish to be a correct hermit, it’s important to stay in relationship to God. In any other case you simply turn into one other wild, bearded man who lives by himself within the forest,” Schwarz informed me throughout my go to in Could.
Schwarz estimated he nonetheless fell extra on the facet of untamed, bearded man than enlightened hermit. However he was attempting. He had given up lots of the comforts of recent life—sofas, flat-screen TVs, fixed connectivity—and taught himself the way to construct, plant, paint, write, and hear. Time up right here was a slippery factor. He was 46, and he figured he had a minimum of 20 extra years—climate and well being allowing—to higher perceive via devotional isolation the transitory nature of human existence and share what he discovered with others.
A signal exterior the entrance to Schwarz’s tiny stone hut reads: “Eremo San Onofrio,” St. Onuphrius’ Hermitage. Onuphrius was a hermit within the Egyptian desert within the fourth or fifth century, one of many early Christian ascetics who went into the wild to realize hêsychia, or interior silence; he lived within the desert for 70 years, enduring excessive thirst and starvation, and is often depicted as a skeletal man with nothing however a protracted beard and a loincloth of leaves. None of this was a state that Schwarz initially aspired to. “Once I grew to become a priest 20 years in the past, I might have by no means been in a position to let you know that in the future I’ll stay in a hut,” Schwarz mentioned.
Schwarz grew up enjoying within the woods within the Austrian countryside exterior the small metropolis of Linz. As a toddler, he made maps tracing the creeks from their origin to the place they entered the Danube River. He needed to stroll over a mile from his mother and father’ home to see associates and got here from an outdoorsy household, with a great-grandmother who had hiked properly into her 80s. He was solely “nominally Catholic,” as he places it, which was the identical for many Austrians, and his household didn’t go to church.
In 1990, Schwarz was 12, and the world round Linz was full of individuals exploring other ways to stay: There have been workshops on aura readings and discovering energetic fields. Schwarz sometimes joined in: He remembers, for example, strolling unhurt over glowing coals as a young person. He dabbled in environmentalism, donating to Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund. Subsequent got here the artwork of puppetry: Schwarz gave road performances throughout Europe. Then, when he was 19, a pal who was in what Schwarz calls “the choice scene” invited him to accompany her to Rome and Umbria.
The Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi—glowing pink and white stones backed by Umbria’s inexperienced hills—was a marvel. Schwarz discovered that St. Francis had personally rebuilt the tiny chapel contained in the Basilica earlier than he had interpreted the summons to “rebuild the church” as a metaphysical invocation; the thought moved Schwarz profoundly. He may nearly see St. Francis’ fingerprints laying the mortar. It was in that chapel that Schwarz instantly felt known as to turn into a priest. He gave up different imagined potential lives—painter, scientist, husband, father of 5 youngsters—and enrolled at Austria’s Worldwide Theological Institute within the japanese Alps.
Every day I stroll myself right into a state of well-being and stroll away from each sickness. I’ve walked myself into my greatest ideas, and I do know of no thought so burdensome that one can’t stroll away from it,” wrote the Danish theologian Søren Kierkegaard in 1847.
In 1998, whereas nonetheless a theology pupil, Schwarz walked greater than 1,000 miles from Austria to the well-traveled Santiago de Compostela in Spain in a fabric gown, with out cash or a backpack, counting on the kindness of strangers. Whereas strolling, Schwarz discovered his attachment to consolation slipping away. First got here the bodily ache because the physique adjusted to day-long motion. Then, because the ache pale, the thoughts wandered, processing recollections and new encounters, slipping out and in of rumination. However after a couple of weeks, “the rhythm of your steps will slowly clear your thoughts,” wrote Schwarz. Eat, sleep, stroll, repeat. He met folks he wouldn’t have encountered in any other case and located them to be pleasant. In some unspecified time in the future, he stopped speaking to himself—there was no inside voice or meta-commentary. This new actuality was reflective and calm, like drifting in a lake. “When you merely are, your mountain climbing boots now not matter,” he wrote. “You’ve began a journey inward. What is going to you discover, or whom?” Schwarz returned to high school, however the altered state of pilgrimage stayed with him; he longed to undertake future and extra formidable walks.
Actuality, in the event you actually search it out, can have solutions about who we’re, and what we’re.
In 2004, Schwarz grew to become a priest, serving for 9 years in a parish in peaceable, semi-rural Liechtenstein; for 2 of these years, he was the parish priest. However regardless of the bucolic environment, he didn’t benefit from the duties of overseeing a finances or making spreadsheets. His artistic self was untapped, and he was all the time operating from one factor to the subsequent. Additionally, being a priest was in a approach too simple and subsequently dissatisfying. There was a relentless reinforcement of your position in a approach that would enhance an ego. “You’ll all the time have individuals who like what you’re doing and can all the time offer you reward,” Schwarz defined. Though he wished to serve in whichever capability his Bishop ordered, within the parish he was stressed.
In 2013, Schwarz took depart from work and trekked 8,680 miles on foot from Liechtenstein to Jerusalem, and made a documentary movie about this journey, To The place God Dwells. He was impressed to movie his pilgrimage after viewing the movie Into Nice Silence, which captures the lives of the Carthusian monks on the Grande Chartreuse, a monastery within the French Alps. In Israel, he encountered the sun-bleached Negev desert, an immense house the place it was arduous to glimpse a residing factor. “Strolling via the desert, I entered a world by which you might understand silence,” Schwarz mentioned. The huge house held a presence, like “the enjoyment that comes with the presence of a lover.” It was as if he had instantly entered a tent, he mentioned, and contained in the tent the environment was totally different. He stored strolling, however “the extra instant expertise kind of by no means left me,” he mentioned. “There may be this stunning St. Augustine quote that claims the lover has the urge to sing … which I did, despite the fact that I’m not a singer, filling the desert with my voice as I walked via it.” Schwarz returned to his parish, however he wished to proceed to expertise that non secular growth.
The Alps had lengthy captivated Schwarz as each a spot and a pilgrimage route, providing well-worn footpaths that different mystics, monks, and the spiritually inclined had trod. There was a historical past of individuals retreating into their slopes for cover or inquiry into the non-material world; down within the valley from Monte Viso have been the remnants of the Waldensians, followers of an ascetic Christian motion that was excommunicated by the Roman Church in 1184 and had hidden out within the valley for the reason that finish of the thirteenth century. In 2016, Schwarz requested permission from his Archdiocese to withdraw from parish life in pursuit of his personal tasks—principally writings, documentaries, or quick movies to translate spiritual ideas into fashionable parlance. After combing via totally different ranges for actual property, Schwarz discovered a property with a crumbling stone dwelling for below €20,000. There was one thing St. Franciscan within the thought of rebuilding a home fairly than letting it dissolve.
In the Fifties, the English author and adventurer Patrick Leigh Fermor absconded from town to beat author’s block and keep in monasteries throughout Europe. In A Time to Hold Silence, a e book of letters from his sojourn, Fermor wrote concerning the French Abbey of St. Wandrille, which allowed no talking or smoking. “The interval throughout which regular requirements recede and the unusual new world turns into actuality is gradual, and at first, acutely painful,” Fermor wrote. But after only a few days, he skilled a metamorphosis by which his thoughts may give attention to bigger questions, whereas frequent feelings like concern and guilt dissipated. His work improved.
Schwarz’s transition into solitude was not painful like Fermor’s; it was like a gradual realization of cultivating one thing that had been inside him all alongside. He carried what he’d gained from his expertise as a pilgrim—bodily labor, isolation, minimalism, and wilderness—onto the mountain. “It’s in dropping your self that you just turn into who you actually are,” Schwarz mentioned.
On the onset of his hermitage, Schwarz stored each day habits so as to not turn into aimless. He slept deeply, woke with out an alarm, and started his days at 5 a.m. He continually needed to restore or construct to maintain the home steady and the gardens producing meals, lit candles within the chapel, lined the partitions with cork for insulation, carved icons, and painted spiritual iconography.
As Schwarz labored to revive the hut and labored on movies and books, he started to expertise an ease that he had not had earlier than. The times flowed one into one other. In every job, there was a type of pleasure. As a youthful particular person, he would have blasted music whereas doing exterior work, however right here he didn’t need the distraction as he pushed stones into the steep hillside to create terraces that heat the soil. The mountain sharpened his listening to: What at first appeared like a wicked howl in the midst of the night time Schwarz may quickly determine because the cry of a wolf. He started to concentrate to smells of the herbs and grasses round him. “There may be nothing in our thoughts that has not are available via the senses,” he mentioned.
In periods of relaxation, Schwarz mentioned his thoughts doesn’t fill with to-do lists or replay conversations from the day earlier than. As a substitute, he listens to the water dashing via swollen creeks filled with melted snow, glimpses the pale inexperienced leaves unfolding from tree branches. Nature isn’t a mom to Schwarz—nature doesn’t give him unconditional love—however, within the lineage of St. Francis, extra like a sister, an entity to be revered. In the summertime he sleeps with the balcony doorways open, notes the return of frogs to the pond. He doesn’t fear about cash, as a result of his residing bills are low, and his human interactions are occasional and fulfilling fairly than fixed and grating. He has a mobile phone however forgets about it for lengthy intervals of time. Probably the most aggravating issues Schwarz encounters are animals, just like the chipmunks that slept below his stone slab roof for seven months of the yr, wakened in the summertime, and made a racket.
The hermitage has semi-removed Schwarz from the fabric world—though he nonetheless travels to provide sermons, hosts guests, and conducts native funerals when requested—however the web connects him to it. In late 2023, he posted a sequence on YouTube about his life, One Yr within the Lifetime of a Half-Time Hermit. Schwarz wished to share his insights, however he didn’t essentially need to instruct others the way to stay. “I’m not suggesting you get away out of your 9-5,” Schwarz says in one of many movies. “I merely suggest that you just select to steer a unprecedented life. And also you should not have to go anyplace to try this. I contend {that a} life is extraordinary solely in as a lot because the atypical issues are carried out with a unprecedented quantity of affection.”
In his house on the mountain, Schwarz finds himself in dialog principally with a Western spiritual and philosophical canon—one that features Plato, St. Augustine, and Nietzsche. He reads the information and is troubled concerning the ongoing wars, however to him in addition they really feel distant, signs of societies which have moved away from caring about deeper which means and have been targeted on particular person grievances.
His thoughts doesn’t fill with to-do lists or replay conversations from the day earlier than.
“We’ve to look past the bodily—to what’s subsequently known as metaphysical,” he mentioned. “With out metaphysics, all that’s left is politics. And politics devoid of the appropriate metaphysics—for all the great needs, hopes, and goals of man—leads ultimately to a really earthly hell.”
Schwarz, who at one level wished to be a marine biologist, is an advocate of the scientific technique, however he faults fashionable science with changing essentially the most essential questions—“What’s the which means of life?” “What’s our objective right here on Earth?”—with mundane questions resembling “How do objects work?” In his view, post-Enlightenment considering had led to the subjugation of nature on a grand scale, and materialism and naturalism are ideological positions that draw on a narrative concerning the world that was not true. Not every thing actual may be quantified.
“Actuality, if something, is one thing we uncover,” Schwarz mentioned: a present you might stay open to. He nonetheless goes on strenuous pilgrimages, which he feels are important in whittling down existence, taking him even nearer to its core. You can’t entry interior stillness via studying an article about it, and maybe, Schwarz puzzled, it could have been higher to say nothing in any respect. And, though he’s usually in a position to entry hêsychia, an interior silence, he’s nonetheless interrogating his objective on Earth. Was fleeing society a approach for him to flee his personal weaknesses and failings? Is he getting nearer to God, or evading his duties as a priest?
The extra Schwarz places down roots within the Alps—he has lately constructed a deck and a walipini greenhouse, which is dug into the bottom—the extra he turns into conscious of the momentary nature of the bodily actuality that surrounds him. It’s at instances a contradictory factor to clarify. He has grown connected to the property and the birds, misses the odor of moist earth when he travels—but more and more sees himself as merely a custodian of the land, one who would quickly depart this world for the subsequent. Schwarz lately re-tiled his roof, selecting tiles that will final for 35 years, till he turns 81. From his vantage level, it isn’t up to now off. “The previous 5 years nearly really feel like a blink,” Schwarz mentioned. Though the dragonflies have been solely hatching, he knew that quickly the chestnuts would fall and he would roast their mushy facilities within the small wooden range throughout winter nights.
Not like his desert pilgrimage, the mountain hermitage has a bodily construction, however it nonetheless feels considerably like that spiritually expansive tent the place Schwarz may see issues from an altered perspective. The desert and the mountain are related: They provide a solution to be in between this world and the subsequent. “We have to perceive ourselves as pilgrims passing via,” Schwarz mentioned. 
Lead picture courtesy of Johannes Schwarz
Get the Nautilus e-newsletter
Reducing-edge science, unraveled by the very brightest residing thinkers.
