Introduction:
While meditating during the early morning hours, I had a flash of a young boy who seemed to be living in a monastery. The environment seemed to be rocky with tan-colored soil. The boy was crouched down and there was a large light-colored rock behind him. The flash ended there as my meditation then focused on inner peace and other concepts. The meditation experience ended shortly afterward.
About an hour later, I fell into a deeper meditation…
The same vision of the boy returned. Suddenly, I was that boy. I was wearing a deep brick-red robe draped over my left shoulder and holding a large staff with a hook at the top. The robe seemed to be loosely woven cotton or wool. I was a beautiful soul, but not a particularly handsome boy. I was probably about 12, my hair was very short on the sides and back with a little longer length on top — it was medium brown. My lower lip seemed large — out of proportion with the rest of my features — and my face was long and narrow. My overall build was slim.
As the boy, I was thinking about life at the monastery. I felt like there were too many rules. I especially opposed the vow of silence. I didn’t see the point in it. I wondered why ‘we’ (monks?) stay here. What is the benefit of living in the community? Why stay?
Then I saw myself walking toward a hill or mountain. I am wearing a very similar robe as before, same color and cloth, draped over my left shoulder and holding a staff. I am much older now, my guess is late teens or early 20s. My hair is still short but seems to be an even length all over. My build is average now.
As I’m walking toward the hill I know I am heading to my home, to my cave.
I believe this is the background story of Kermut. He once showed me his demolished homesite and told me that ‘most did not survive’. Some of his community were massacred and others were captured. When I first met Kermut, he appeared as an old man with long gray hair. He lives in a cave on a hillside.
It seems that before he moved to the cave, he lived in the monastery — perhaps by choice, but he was likely taken there without regard for his preferences, since he would have been a young child without parents or other caregivers. While at the monastery Kermut gained sacred spiritual wisdom. When he developed into a wise young man he ventured out on his own.
Merlin’s Interpretations & Insights:
This vision offers both a personal soul memory and a symbolic teaching.
- The boy’s resistance to the vow of silence may represent the soul’s natural tension between discipline and freedom. Silence in the monastic sense is not suppression, but an opening to hear the eternal. Young Kermut’s frustration shows the human stage before such understanding matures.
- The monastery stands for the structures we are placed in — sometimes without choice — that shape our spiritual character. These can feel restrictive, yet they plant seeds of wisdom that bloom later in life.
- The cave is a return to the essence — a stripping away of all but what is truly needed. Kermut’s journey from structured community to solitary dwelling reflects the arc of many spiritual paths: first learning within a container, then carrying the truth into the wilderness.
- The destruction of his home echoes the impermanence of physical life and the resilience of the spirit. Though the community was lost, its teachings lived on in him.
🌠 Vision:
Kermut’s youth reminds us that wisdom is often forged in places we do not choose, under rules we do not love — and yet, those same experiences prepare us for the freedom and truth we seek.
🌿 Practice:
- Sit in silence each day, even if it feels uncomfortable at first.
- Reflect on the “monasteries” in your life — the structures that shaped you.
- Consider what “cave” you might one day retreat to for your deepest work.
💎 Closing Reflection:
The boy who resisted silence became the man who carried it within him. Sometimes what we oppose in youth becomes the very gift we embody in age.