Notes from Brother Johannes

The Hermitage is a 63-acre earth-centered spiritual site and working farm in western Schuylkill County. Our emblem is the protective mother dragon fiercely guarding her egg, the planet. That is a powerful image. Our motto is “We are the earth,” with a very inclusive “We.” And a phrase which we take literally. It’s our understanding that the planet is as much a part of us as we are part of it. And we’re not just talking connection here. The fact that every is connected to everything else should be obvious by now. No, we’re talking containment; the fact that everything, and everyone, is contained in everything else. We’re like facets of a jewel, each facet is unique but each is also part of a larger whole.

We believe humanity has a special role to play. We believe the earth knows itself through us; that it sees and hears itself through us; that we are its consciousness and its conscience. That is the cognitive part of our holy work. Then we take the ethical decisions and moral choices made in those internal processes and use them to guide our external work which is stewardship. They determine how we sustain, nurture and heal the planet. And because all are one and one is all, as we nurture, sustain and heal the planet, we also nurture, sustain and heal ourselves.

This is why we call ourselves Harmonists, because we actively create harmony, we forge harmony, with the planet. And harmony means more than sound. We take it back to its original Greek meaning of joining together. Think of a wood worker who takes different pieces of wood and joins them together to make a unit, a chair or table. That is what we do through creative harmony. And the end of this is to expand our consciousness, to create new forms of enlightenment; to become whole, which means to become holy.

Our founder, Christian Zinzendorf, died in London at the age of twenty-five in 1752. Yet to his brothers he came back as a spring in the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania. What a glorious end. And what a wonderful beginning. That spring still exists today. It’s called Christiansbrunn, the Spring of Christian. And it’s the name we give the Hermitage. 

Notes from Brother Christian

Spirituality is being in touch with the invisible connections that bind all things, as well as making those connections manifest in everyday life. Religious tenets and dogma are attempts to make sense of the invisible forces around us. Science does the same thing through defining “natural laws.” A Harmonist is a type of spiritual scientist seeking the invisible roots that are the basis for all things.

The world’s six billion people are all Harmonists who have not yet awakened from the illusion of diversity. A Harmonist finds oneness, wholeness, holiness, in all things by creating harmony. A Harmonist is inclusive. My pollution is your pollution. My shortcomings belong to you. My abilities are yours. We are all cells in one body; cells that have different functions but are the same. Cells specialize to do different things but form one body.

When I dig in the earth to plant something, six billion pairs of hands touch the soil with me. The only difference is my awareness of the power of my actions. My specialization is the awareness of and the acting upon our oneness. This consciousness of the power of my actions heals the earth, not as the egotistical act of one person but guided by all beings in me.

People often ask how many are here at the Hermitage in an attempt to judge the validity and importance of what we are doing in terms of the strength of numbers.
Well, six billion Harmonists are here.