Cécile and her Tent

Her name is Cécile and she is 85 years old.

Cécile lives in Belgium in a residence for the elderly. A retired nun, she spent her life caring for poor patients in the four corners of the world.

One day, Sister Cécile decided to set up a tent in the common garden of her retirement home, to retreat there when she needed peace and solitude.

The institution was of course opposed to his project, but she held her ground, her vow surely wasn’t one of obedience to the managers of this world. Against all odds, she pitched her tent, surrounded it with bark and branches and made it her refuge. Every day, Sister Cécile spends a few hours out of sight there to meditate, pray, and take stock of her life before returning to her room.

Her shelter perfectly embodies what environmental psychologists, particularly Jay Appleton, have theorized under the name of "prospect-refuge theory": the configuration of a space, its access to natural light and visual perspectives profoundly influence our emotional states and explain our preferences for certain types of places. It also clearly illustrates the meaning of the hexagram that we have borrowed from the I Ching to make it the logo of the l’Université dans la Nature: a strategic withdrawal, the place to which one pulls back to come back stronger and which, without a doubt, in our view, is nature.

Recently though, the wind tore up Cécile's tent. Her little paradise almost completely vanished… There’s only a single piece of canvas left and winter is knocking at the door.

We therefore decided, together with our collaborator in Italy, Isabel de Maurissens, to offer Cécile a new tent. She doesn’t know it yet, but she will receive her new tent by mail tomorrow.

So sleep peacefully, Sister Cécile.