Abstract
There is a gap of ten years between the sporadic entries in Journal 3 (last entry 1963) and Journal 4 (first entry 1973). The gap is filled somewhat by 28 loose pages with journal-like entries dating from August, 1970 to November, 1972 and these have been added to the beginning of Journal 4 which originally had only 19 pages. The entry that begins in this chapter was written shortly after Elise’s 50th birthday and gives the first hint of what became a multi-year spiritual awakening process that culminated during Elise’s “Hermitage year” in 1974. Upon her return to an active life of teaching, research, writing and speaking in 1975, Elise’s journals record the ups and downs, joys and frustrations of integrating and seeking balance between the contemplative and outward-looking aspects of her life. Elise did not compartmentalize her life, so it is somewhat artificial to separate journal entries that reflect “inner” and “outer”, yet they there is a coherence and richness in both that provide different ways of seeing and understanding the remarkable legacy she left to the world.
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- 1.
This was written almost a year after Elise’s “upside down turning” visit to India in January, 1971, as described in Born Remembering (Chap. 1).
- 2.
This entry describes in more detail the encounter in Born Remember (Chap. 1) that marked Part II of the remembering involved in Elise’s “conversion”.
- 3.
In the Willowbrook house there was one bedroom on the lower floor with no windows.
- 4.
This is the first actual entry in the journal; from here on out Elise kept journals more-or-less continuously for the rest of her life.
- 5.
Reflection prompted by reading advance copy of Thomas Merton’s Asian Journal.
- 6.
Elise’s mother Brigit died at the age of 52, and it seems that for much of her life up to this point Elise did not expect to live longer than her mother did.
- 7.
This entry follows description of a visit with her sister Sylvia whose “old sense of inadequacy, of genius unfulfilled which is the tragic legacy of mother’s misguided aspirations for her” was expressed (J6:6–7). Sylvia ended up taking her life in 1981 at the age of 52, the same age that their mother was when she died.
- 8.
An “old king of a tree” that stood on a stone platform uphill from the Hermitage on which Elise greeted the rising sun each morning.
- 9.
Philip Slater, 1968: The Glory of Hera (Boston: Beacon Press).
- 10.
See also, April 2 and 4, 1974 entries in next chapter.
- 11.
As the only woman visitor Elise had to eat alone; only other male visitors were allowed to eat with the resident monks.
- 12.
Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, 1937: Christian Perfection & Contemplation According To St. Thomas Aquinas & St. John of the Cross (Herder).
- 13.
Thich Nhat Hahn and Daniel Berrigan, 1975: The Raft is Not the Shore: Conversations Toward a Buddhist/Christian Awareness (Beacon):23.
- 14.
Kusum Nair, 1967: Blossoms in the Dust (Duckworth).
- 15.
Wilfred Jenks, 1969: World Beyond the Charter in Historical Perspective: Tentative Synthesis of Four Stages of World Organization (Allen & Unwin).
- 16.
Jaques Ellul, 1970: Prayer and Modern Man. Trans. C. Edward Hopkin (New York: Seabury).
- 17.
Hal Borland, 1956: High, Wide and Lonesome (New York: Lippincott) and Hal Borland, 1963: When the Legends Die (New York: Lippincott).
- 18.
Reflections on reading Erik P. Eckholm, 1976: Losing Ground: Environmental Stress and World Food Prospects (W.W. Norton).
- 19.
This poem is one of fifteen written between July 6 to July 12 that were eventually put together as Songs of Our Grandchildren from Hermitage Hollow. The quote from Meister Eckhart is from his 10th Sermon.
- 20.
During Elise’s Hermitage year in 1974 she paid for most of the office support she had while researching and writing Underside of History out of her own salary. She continued to do this in order to pursue the research and writing that she felt was important, for the next few years, but with Kenneth’s pending retirement, the cost of maintaining her office support became increasingly stressful.
- 21.
After reading Christopher Armstrong, 1976: Evelyn Underhill (1875–1941): An Introduction to Her Life and Writings (Eerdmans).
- 22.
Mircea Eliade, 1971: The Myth of the Eternal Return: Cosmos and History (Princeton University Press).
- 23.
Elise was reading about the aged in preparation for writing a paper which does not seem to have been published. The entry marks the beginning of her awareness of treatment of the aged as a social issue.
- 24.
C.G. Jung, 1965: Memories, Dreams, Reflections (Vintage Books).
- 25.
Elise had no recurrence of breast cancer.
- 26.
The circumstances leading up to Elise’s move to teach at Dartmouth are covered in more detail in the next chapter.
- 27.
The loss of her sister Sylvia in September by suicide, and “then one as dear to me as a sister, Mabel Hamm of Ann Arbor, with whom I shared 18 wonderful years of joint rearing of our 2 families” by heart attack.
- 28.
Reflections on reading Monica Furlong, 1981: Merton: A Biography (NY: Harper & Row).
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Boulding, J.R. (2017). Inner Life: Seeking the Spirit, 1970–1983. In: Boulding, J. (eds) Elise Boulding: Autobiographical Writings and Selections from Unpublished Journals and Letters. Pioneers in Arts, Humanities, Science, Engineering, Practice, vol 9. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46538-8_6
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