In this Pamplona of ours there is a place reserved for us, the losers. It becomes visible to all those who, having lost something in life, sit down to remember. I, without a cane or mourning clothes, sit close to the old people and become one of them. Deep down, we, the returnees to this place, feel alone. We are losers because it is our losses in life that have been the midwives of these sudden lonelinesses of ours.

That afternoon, unconvinced to face my solitude in complete nudity, I sat at place with the book Letters to a Young Poet in my hands, one of the most famous works of the Jewish poet Rilke. It is a series of real letters that Rilke writes to the young poet Franz Kappus, where he advises him about life and poetry. Thus, Rilke reveals the secret of his verses: solitude. The Jewish poet considered his lyrical talent to be a vocation, and the only way to accept it was to love one's own solitude, which was the creator of art. In the letter of July 16, 1903, Rilke writes to Kappus:

"But solitude will serve you as a refuge and home even in the midst of very strange relationships, and, from solitude, you will find all your ways."

After reading the sentence, I laughed mockingly - hiding in the background a harassing anguish - I, a man without a path, without design or vocation as a poet! What was this loneliness that did not seem to lead me to any direction, but to a cruel monotony? Confused at the usefulness of solitude, I asked the book: "Rilke, but what do I do with this sudden solitude of mine?" Silence. The recipient to whom I was speaking had long since died and had no business answering the doubts of a bitter young man of the 21st century.

However, Pamplona, despite its quietness, is also the bearer of surprises. There, while I was commending my complaints to a dead Rilke, I heard the sad old men talking among themselves. To my ignorance, Pamplona, in the month of October, would become the protagonist of the Encuentros en Pamplona: international biennial of culture, art and thought. An event that kindled hope in the souls of my loser friends: "We have found our savior," the old men used to tell me. This art biennial would feature someone whom the old folks -and, later, me too- considered their answer to loneliness: the poet Hugo Mujica. They, very informed about the cultural current affairs, told me that Mujica was one of the most important Argentine poets of the present time. After an approach to spirituality, Mujica remained in the monastic life of the Trappist order for seven years under a vow of silence. During these years, he began to write poetry. For the old men, Hugo Mujica represented that example of a man who, in solitude and silence, had found a way, had found an answer expressed in poetry which was, for us losers, the answer we were looking for so much. Moreover, unlike Rilke, Hugo Mujica was a living poet. And if I found a sign of a living poet, shouldn't I - as Franz Kappus did in his time with Rilke - look for answers in Mujica about this mysterious solitude?

"Empty Paradise" was the degree scroll of the lecture held on October 7 in the auditorium of the Baluarte theater. In the distance, the viejitos and I sat in the audience, expectant to listen to the one we had proclaimed as our sage. After some brief applause, Mujica sat down in front of the audience and, pouring himself a glass of water, reminded the listeners that man is not that animal that speaks, but first he is that animal that listens. After all, his experience in the monastic order had taught him that: "to listen". Faced with the solitude experienced in the monastery, Mujica had learned to listen to silence and understood that the answers come from it.

For Mujica, the solitary man enters the divine mystery that is represented in his poems through the image of the night and the desert. However, the confrontation with the desert is not seen as a mere confrontation with emptiness, but as a confrontation with the divine. The interesting thing is that this confrontation with the desert is due to the fact that man has experienced a loss. That's when I understood it! Mujica, like us, was a loser! That reflection reminded me of a past interview conducted by Antonio Román in which Mujica, in the same way, argues about the need for loss:

"Paradise has always been lost. The loss is paradise because from the loss begins everything (...) Art, how does it begin? By the loss of Eurydice by Orpheus".

After all, in the face of loss, man experiences himself as empty, and it is only in this inner emptiness that he can come to understand the emptiness of the desert itself. Man, in this way, in the desert faces silence, and it is in this silence that reflection begins:

"Every life guards its own:
he who says nothing
and in that nothing says it
and reveals"

In this way, through silence we encounter this "nothingness", but as Mujica himself emphasizes, "one learns to listen to it", and it is through this listening that revelations are discovered and answers are obtained. Mujica also stressed that in the desert it is not a matter of finding the divine light and pilgrimage from it, but of existing from it. In this sense, to enter the desert is not to seek the divine in a distant light, but to know that, by entering the desert, one is already existing from that light. I thought about how, perhaps, my problem with loneliness was solved through all these aspects. First, I had to face solitude like facing a desert, knowing, however, that it was solitude that allowed me to enter into the divine mystery. Second, in the desert there was no room for true solitude because the desert was light. God himself was the desert, and by wandering in it, one already existed in the light. While I was engrossed in these thoughts, Hugo Mujica stood in front of the audience to recite one last poem. After leaving us with his verses, he left without saying a word:

"slashes the night
the lightning and in the cleft
is extinguished:
that night is the mystery,
that gash is what we are".

The old men and I were plunged into more doubt. Our cruel loneliness was slowly killing us and, as was evident, none of us had achieved peace in this lonely desert. "Perhaps," I reflected to myself, "I have not yet learned to listen." Perhaps my lonely desert was still very different from Mujica's. I was still trying to find a divine light in this desert, while he walked in the desert already existing from it. "The poet Hugo Mujica will be outside the auditorium to sign books," said a voice that enveloped the spectators. I hurriedly left the lecture, leaving the old people behind with the simple goal of being able to talk with the poet. At the exit, a line formed with spectators anxious to meet face to face with the wise man. The line moved forward until I found myself a few steps away from the man who had learned to love and respect his solitude. I thought of all the things I could ask: how can I be happier, how do I cope with this solitude, how long has it taken to live a peaceful existence, how does it feel to know the divine mystery? But I thought of the light, and that the answer to solitude lay in knowing how to inhabit it. But what was this light? In the face of my nerves, only one question escaped from my soul:

- Mr. Mujica, how can I avoid walking towards the divine light, but simply exist from it?

The simply built man looked me in the eye as he nodded with a smile. He was silent and, as if speaking to an ancient reflection of himself, he said to me:

- Light also casts shadows, that's where the tension lies... it's about learning to incorporate them as well.

I wanted to ask him more, but the line was getting longer and the readers behind me demanded their right to greet the sage. I said goodbye gratefully and left the theater with the poet's words still echoing in my mind. I did not understand many things, perhaps understanding that it was not yet my time to understand them. I had come to this lecture with doubts about my solitude, and I was leaving now with doubts about the desert and the light. Pamplona, with its storm, darkened the sky and, in the distance, carrying black umbrellas, I watched the old people who, confused and even sadder, returned to the place of the losers. I walked slowly until I lost their silhouettes in the distance. With my face soaked, I looked at the sky. There, among the clouds, there was a small ray of light. I raised my arm and, with my slender fingers, tried to reach it. I was a pilgrim of solitude watching the light in the distance, wishing to exist in it, but not yet knowing how.

Bibliography

Mujica, H. (2019). To the stars of the immense. Visor Libros.

Rilke, M. (2004). Letters to a young poet. El Cid publisher.

Román, A. (2018). Un silencio que se palpa. Interview with Hugo Mujica. Carthaginensia, xxxiv (65), 163 - 178.