Swami Satchidananda

Wise words from Swami Satchidananda from Integral Yoga magazine Learn lessons from the ups and downs in life. You need failures; otherwise, you won’t have stepping stones to go up. Nobody has ever gone up without failures. It’s just natural. The more intense you are in the spiritual field, the greater the tests that will come. If you read the life stories of sages and saints and great devotees, nobody was spared from that. Don’t think that you will be always praised. But, if you know that this process is natural, you won’t get disturbed over it. On the other hand, you’ll know that you’re growing. The tests, themselves, are proof that you’re on the right path and that you’re being tested. Don’t get disheartened by that.” “God bless you. Om Shanthi, Shanthi, Shanthi.”

Loving Arms

Yesterday I received a tentative diagnosis of early Parkinson's.  I found myself feeling pretty weepy and didn't get anything done, although this possibility is not a surprise to me.  This morning I awakened and went right to our "yoga" room and did my usual morning practice.  This is asana, with lots of somatics these days, pranayama and meditation.  It felt so good and comforting.  I felt wrapped in the loving arms of the Universe.  All is good.

Thanksgiving Turn Around

I hate to admit it, but I can get myself tense during the preparations for holidays like the Thanksgiving we just had.  This year I found something that quickly changed my automatic reaction.

Our son and daughter-in-law and their adorable 4y old Luli, our youngest grandchild, were here from Seattle.  We had the rest of the family here, including girlfriends of grandsons (that's a new one for us).  The two days before Thanksgiving, I was busy preparing food for our visiting kids and for the holiday.  We also made the beds, etc--you know how it goes.

I found myself getting uptight, and then wanting to be angry with Lauren, my hubby, projecting my tenseness out onto him.  Not very nice.  But, I caught this soon-to-be negative behavior, and said (to myself), "I don't want to be like that!"  And I instantly softened and open up--and knew things would work out no matter what--of course.

The result was this turn around lasted throughout the holidays, and I had a much happier and more peaceful holiday and time with our visiting families.  I'm sure they did too.  It was lovely.

                                                                                   

PRACTICE/SADHANA

I just began reading the Fall, 2011 issue of my Integral Yoga Magazine.  On the inside of the front cover was this wisdom from Sri Swami Satchidananda, (who took Mahasamadhi, the soul's conscious final exit from the body, in August, 2004), on spiritual practice.  He said it so much better than I, but I thought it fit with my last blog post.

Spiritual practice is not what you are doing, but what you are thinking.  Remember that.  If you could understand the meaning of sadhana you would know how to do it.  You don't have to change your activities and say, "this is sadhana but this is not."  Everything becomes a spiritual practice.  We should transform all our activities into this kind of sadhana.  That means:  "I am doing everything as a meditation, as an offering, as a prayer to serve God through this service to humanity."  


And later on page 7, "...enjoy the practices....However hard, difficult or painful something is, you can still enjoy it.  Think of people who climb Mt. Everest...they invest a lot of time, energy and effort.  They risk their lives, yet they enjoy the challenge...."


So there it is.  Enjoy and maybe be inspired.

PRACTICE

I've been thinking a lot about "practice" the last few days.    

Practice--I do something over and over (like yoga, like singing when I was younger) to get better at it.

Practice--I have a specific set of things I do daily, or nearly daily, that enhances my life.

Practice--I have a psychology and sandplay therapy practice--it's my work.

The first two definitions are what this blog is about today.  Practicing means making a commitment and then showing up and, well, doing it--practicing.  I can trust myself to discipline myself to show up and do my yoga routine, to meditate.  This is even when I don't want to--I'm tired, busy, distracted, lazy--oh there are a zillion excuses aren't there?

If I faithfully show up, I develop a Practice in my life.  This practice feeds my body and nourishes my soul.  I feel calmer and more trusting of the universe in my life.  It's there when much else is falling away.  It can count on me and I can count on it.

So, practice!  

Belief and Struggle

I have been dealing with body stuff lately--pain and tests.  Nothing serious, but difficult for me.  I focus on it.

How do I go to that place of being in this precise moment and going deep within my body, where I could/might merge with Consciousness/Being?

I believe and I struggle.

Apple Butter

This year has brought several deaths of friends my age--something new for me for the most part.
Joe, my friend and sandplay therapy colleague and consultant's wife, Doris, died last Thursday night

Doris was a "salt-of-the-earth" type of person.  She was close to the earth and thoughtful and no-nonsense.  Doris had been busy making apple butter this fall, gifting it to her child's restaurant and to others.  Apple butter is one of my favorite things, especially spread on top of toast with peanut butter--yummy!  Joe had brought me a jar of her delicious apple butter at the first of this month.  How lucky I am to have received one of her last jars of apple butter.

Here is a poem I wrote in honor of and memory of dear Doris.

Apple Butter

Like apple butter, she was brown and earthy;

Like apple butter, she was sweet and tangy;

Like apple butter, she was smooth and deep;

Like apple butter, she went well with everything;

Like apple butter, she enhanced whatever she was near;

Like apple butter, she was a wonderful gift;

Like apple butter, she belonged to Nature and Spirit,

and it is there she returned, merging with Consciousness.

JUMPING IN WITH MY WHOLE HEART

Well, I've done it!

Years ago I wrote an affirmation for myself that was, "I jump into my life with my whole heart."  My normal pattern was to sign on to something, but then feel a drag or a holding back in myself--which truly was a drag!  I was coming from fear and/or a less-than place.

In my blog, I last talked about participating in the Kumbha Mela pilgrimage in India in February 2013.  I said I had many fears but had committed to going.  Some of my fears have to do with money.

I was compromising, fussing, trying to decide when was the "safest" time to pay--did I dare?  I was doing my usual "holding back."

Today I put the remainder of my balance for the trip into the mail!  I jumped in with my whole heart.  FYI, it's a big deal.

Fears/The Now

I, along with others at Yoga North, am contemplating a trip to the Kumbha Mela pilgrimage in India in February, 2013.  The more deeply I invest myself in yoga and yoga philosophy and practices, the more I want to explore and the more I have a yen to see India before I die.  This would be a 3 week trip.  If you go on the Himalayan Institute's website, you can learn about it and see amazing pictures.  www.KM2013.com

Yet, unlike most I know, I have fears about going.  The long flight and how it affects my body; keeping up with others because I go more slowly now that I'm older; adapting to the immense crowds and perhaps the heat; it costs a lot of money--blah, blah.  These fears were holding me back--keeping me stuck on the fence (ouch!).

I was living in the future, not the moment.  The moment is telling me to go and experience whatever the trip will offer me.  Let it change and perhaps even transform me.  Let me meet my edges and learn equanimity.

I have committed to going!  Let my life unfold!

Norway Travelogue

I haven't known how to write about our trip to Norway, so I'll just begin.  Norway is an incredibly beautiful country (and I live in beautiful Duluth, MN), and it is an incredibly expensive country.  We were gone 17 days--a long time for me, but it was a wonderful trip.

4 nights in Bergen, staying in the old part called Bryggen.  Water, boats, old buildings, tourist stores, lots of sweaters (I bought 1 in Bryggen and a 2nd in another city.  We visited the Grieg Museum, Norway's most famous composer.  It was an incredibly charming place, located on a lake.  Lots of wildflowers, trees, his Victorian-like house where he and his wife lived in the latter years.  His tiny red composing cabin was perched next to the lake.  Imagine looking out your window onto a lovely lake and then continuing your composing at your little piano.  Idyllic.

From Bergen, we boarded our Hertigruten ship called MS Trollfjord, named after a huge fjord we saw on our 11 day fjord cruise.  My first cruise of any kind, so I was taken with the tiny cabin, which was outfitted perfectly.  We could both sleep in it, sit on the couch that folded out into a bed at night, and totally unpack all of our things and stow them in all the little cupboards and cubbies for them.  Our deck was the Promenade deck, where we walked outside around the entire ship daily, exercising and snapping photos of the beautiful scenery.  3 huge meals daily.  Each meal I slathered the good butter on the equally good bread.  Dinner was sit down and served (no choices) and quite good.  Out group of 6 sat at "our" table each night.  Miraculously, I didn't gain weight.

We journeyed northward up the fjord coast, stopping at many towns and cities along the way, as the ship was a working ship, loading and unloading passengers and cargo at each stop.  We would debark the ship and walk around the cities we stopped in, being SURE  to make it back in time before the ship left port.  We crossed the Arctic Circle, and I was the only one of our group of 6 to get the ice cubes down my back, poured by King Neptune, to celebrate the crossing.

We took advantage of being on the ship as it traveled and sat by a window and read and read (yes, and dozed some).  So luxurious to have all that time.  I had taken my Kindle loaded up with books to read on the trip.

The ship issued a kind of "charge card" with which we bought everything we purchased on the ship (wasn't that smart of them--almost like not spending money?)  We bought bottles of wine (the cheapest was 330 kroner, which is about $60 US!) and could take them to our table and save them for the next night, a few snacks; I bought a souvenir Trollfjord baseball cap.  I also bought "kleenex" as I developed a cold-type thing, although I didn't feel sick.

After leaving the Trollfjord, we spent 1 night in Trondheim and took the train the next day to Oslo, a 6 hour ride through incredibly gorgeous scenery of green lands, rushing streams, waterfalls, cattle, sheep, red, yellow, orange, and white houses, "mountains," tundra-type land for a time.

Our friends had a friend, Harald, in Oslo, who had been an AFS student at Denfeld High School in Duluth in 1955.  Harald showed us around Oslo, although it was a rainy and foggy day, so our view of the famous Holmenkollen (sp?) ski jump was thwarted.  He had us for supper, which his friend, Lill, had prepared while we were touring Oslo.  When we arrived in Oslo, the children and grandchildren of one of the couples traveling with us, and who live in Germany, met us at the train!  Each one came on and grabbed one of our bags, including 7y Meredith, and hauled them through the enormous station to our hotel.  Sweet!

We found the Norwegian people we saw, especially the women, to be tall, fit, blond, and golden brown--gorgeous really.  Lauren, my spouse, developed vertigo on the ship and the doctor we took him to in Kierkenes, was tall, athletic and Swedish.  Lauren improved daily, thank heavens for that!

We flew home from Oslo.   Both our flights were on Icelandic Air--no perks.  I had had a wonderful time, and I was so happy to be home--almost euphoric for a week.

I found I don't sleep well at home or on a trip, but that I do well anyway.  I also need alone time, and I had fun being with dear friends.  I do love to eat.  I loved reading.  I love seeing nature, water, colorful villages, beautiful people, visiting with dear friends.  Takk!

Old Stuff!

We leave soon for a trip to Norway and a fjord cruise with dear friends!   Lauren, my husband, was there when he was in NROTC while in college, and has never forgotten how beautiful the fjords are.

Not all of our documents that we need have reached us, and I found myself flaring in anger with our AAA travel agent.  I realized a moment later that it was that my anxiety had "gone sky high," so I reacted in anger. ( Fear of not being able to stay in our hotel in Bergen, etc.)

That is old, first chakra, stuff for me--not feeling safe in the world.  My instant reaction is anger and a need to do something RIGHT AWAY!  This is all to relieve my anxiety.

Interesting how these old fears and "coping" behaviors lie dormant and can just rise to the surface so easily and quickly.  But good I noticed and realized what was happening.  And good it was my husband who was talking to our travel agent at that moment and not me.  :-)

FINALLY!

Finally, finally, finally!  Obama and the military have agreed to end discrimination in the military against GLBT(gays)!  I have been waiting for this day since then president, Bill Clinton, "betrayed" me by not sticking to his campaign promises, and instead implemented the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy.  (I even wrote him a letter at that time.)  I, who am married, straight, and old, have just breathed a sign of relief and shed a few tears  of gratitude.

Now we have to end discrimination against gays at the altar.  Of course they should be able to celebrate the sacrament of marriage and have the rights of legal partners everywhere.  Recognizing the love and commitment of gay persons can only enhance the commitment my husband and I made 53 years ago.  If some churches just can't go there, at least make gay marriage legal in the states.

I am sorry to say, the United Methodist Church I belong to still discriminates against "practicing" gay and lesbian clergy.  There is absolutely no excuse for this uninformed and inhumane policy.

Still, today I celebrate.

FACE TIME WITH NATURE

After all the heavy rains and high winds, I was desperate for some "face time" with nature, so I went for an early morning walk on the Western Waterfront Trail, which runs in front of my home.  It was magnificent! I saw 2 young muskrats, and they are truly "river rats," and "our" great blue heron stalking the waters.  But what was so fabulous was the creek, full of rushing and tumbling water, carving its way over boulders and trees, and how I felt standing there.  I stood on the bridge and experienced it.

Rushing creek waters

fill me with their mighty power

and merge into JOY!  

SWEET HELPING HANDS

Earlier this week I went for a lovely 1 1/2  hour hike in the very wet woods and trails close to my house with my daughter.  The wild flowers and honeysuckles were in abundance, and it was all so green.  This time we went up the trail, which required going up and down rocks and muddy slopes.  At the top, we overlooked the part of the city I live in and saw where I live and the beautiful winding St. Louis river.

I was very grateful for the helping hand my daughter gave me at times when I did not feel confident I and my knees could safely negotiate the climb up or the slope down.  I realize I have come to a very sweet place of allowing others to come to my aid.  This is something I would never have done in the past--you know, "I'll do it myself!!!"  I also realize I receive the gift of loving care, and I give them the gift of being able to give me a gift.  How sweet is that?  

BIRTHDAYS ARE A BIG DEAL!

Birthdays are a big deal, or maybe I'm reverting to my childhood, when every birthday was an exciting and long-awaited event.  I'm the only one I know to announce my own birthday at church--and to announce my age.  This year I celebrated my 76th birthday, grateful to be here to celebrate, and very grateful to be healthy and happy and able to celebrate it.  As I said, it's a big deal.

This year my birthday landed on the day I go to my yoga class (Tuesdays at 9:30 am at Yoga North with Sara Duke as the teacher).  I always like to celebrate my birthday at yoga by sharing some little treat at the end of class.  This year it was dark chocolate with dried cherries--very yummy.  Sara was on vacation and Molly subbed for her, which was nice.  I was filled with gratefulness for the class and for all that yoga has done for my body, mind and spirit.  I would not be able to enjoy and participate so fully in my life if yoga weren't such an integral part of my life.  My body would definitely be more stiff and sore and inflexible.  Although I have fairly severe arthritis and degeneration and torn this and that, yoga helps me to physically enter into my life.

My pranayama (breath) and meditation practices seep into my daily life and even out the rough places while giving me tools to use in these rough places.  I am grateful.

Each year brings loss and change in my body.  Each year I face reality with more ease.  Each year brings more acceptance and surrender.  Each year brings the possibility of more and more joy.

BIRTHDAYS ARE A BIG DEAL!

Aging: Surrendering

Surrendering

She stands open,

arms flung wide, flowers and toads

let go and drop off.

In each step she drops

the detritus of her life

till she's clear as glass.  


Catharine Larsen, 2007 at Transformational Dance Retreat

BREATHING

I have been thinking about breathing and breath.  My breathing has evolved so much over the years--even lately I experienced a new awareness--well, I called it "breakthrough."  


In yoga we say, "If you know breath, you know everything."  If you think about it, it's true--how we breathe is how we are living at that moment.   Do we hold our breath; is it uneven and jagged; do we inhale and inhale without exhaling (I have clients who do this when they're stressed and emotional)? Desired qualities of breath and breathing in yoga are through the nostrils, silent, even, without pause, and deep.  (There are specific breath practices in yoga where these qualities are not observed.)


A way I dealt with growing up in a household with a lot of verbal fighting between my parents was to hold my breath.  I spent years holding my breath without even knowing it.  More than that, I didn't know how to relax into my breathing--at least when I was trying to breathe and get a big breath so I could sing, or to speak (when I was thinking about breathing).  I would tense up and two things would occur.  My breath could only come in through a narrow pathway, as I was too tense to relax and allow my diaphragm to fully expand all sides of my belly and torso (my sides, my front and my back), so I never achieved a full breath.  And when I exhaled, I frequently did not exhale fully.  I guess I was keeping some in reserve just in case (how stressful is that?).   I was bracing and trying so hard.  I've spoken in a previous blog about my stuttering, and my then-breath practices only exacerbated my stuttering.  Both singing and speaking need to ride on the breath.  


When I first practiced yoga and was asked to breathe in a "full breath," I would become so tense, I hardly took in any breath at all, and I was doing quite a bit of chest breathing.  But now, after years of faithfully practicing yoga, I am able to breathe fully and easily.  It is such a blessing!  At my silence retreat this January, I realized I was not relaxing fully at the bottom of my exhale so that my inhale would be even more full and complete.  All it took was an awareness of that to improve the quality of my breath practices before my meditation.  It is a lovely feeling.  


We can't let go of the past if we cannot exhale fully.  Instead, we're bringing the past into our next moment.  And we can't fully take in the present moment if we are hanging on to the past.  If we're holding our breath in anxiety, we're not in the present; we're in the future.   So breathing fully from our diaphragms, letting the belly rise and fall easily, we let breath breathe us, and we live into our lives as they are.  Try it!   

BACK AGAIN!

Here I am again!  I'm back at a place I have known well over the years.  Where?  The place where my expectations of how my life will go take me.  This is what I am saying to myself (usually unconsciously):  "If I do this or do that, then this will happen.  To be specific--If I eat well, exercise, do yoga, meditate, then my body will thank me by not having joint pain (knee pain that interferes with walking this time), intestinal problems (ever since I returned from MX on Feb. 20th, I have not been quite right, although I am better now).  Do you hear how I am unconsciously living in the future and not being purely in the moment?  Using the Yamas and Niyamas, the ethical guidelines of yoga, I am holding on/Aparigraha to my stories of my life; I am not being fully and purely/Saucha in each moment, and my unhappiness over my reality means I am not staying in the center in contentment/Santosha.

I have had to haul myself back to observing and practicing these tools of skillful living and staying where I am as peacefully as I can.  Every now and then I even get a glimpse of joy in recognizing there are blessings in these places too!  These tough places alert me to how I am living my life and cause me to feel grateful for my yoga knowledge--self discipline/Tapas  and surrender/Ishvara Pranidhana.  


And, in all of this, I am practicing the 9th guideline, Self Study/Svadhyaya.  


Let me hear some of your stories.

MY WITNESS GURU

This month in my "Managing Transitions With the Yamas and Niyamas" class, we will be focusing on both Purity and Contentment, the first 2 niyamas.  Niyamas draw one inward, focusing on one's relationship with oneself and learning how to live with integrity and joy.  I have been experimenting with meeting each moment without reservation and remaining content in each moment at specific times in my own life.  Following is one I've been recently playing with.

 I can experience pain in my body at night.  Sometimes I strongly resist it and feel sorry for myself and wish it weren't so--getting more and more agitated.  It helps to remember that I am not my pain, I am not my body, and I am not my fears; my real Self is the unchanging Divine.  The other night I experimented with becoming the Witness or the Watcher of my pain, and my body, and my reactions, and not identifying with these parts of me, which are constantly fluctuating.  I visualize my Witness as a little person, a guru, sitting in lotus pose in my heart, witnessing all and remaining peaceful and unaffected.  I also focused on my even breathing and relaxed my muscles that were trying really hard to tense up.  I'd move away from this place and then just mindfully return to it.  I can't say that it was easy, but I eventually fell asleep.

I was experimenting with being purely in each moment and with remaining still and serene--in contentment--in my heart.  I let myself be the Witness instead of needing to identify with my pain and restlessness.

It's worth exploring!

Namaste

On Meditation

This beautiful passage explains the struggle and the promise of meditating regularly better than I could.   The o's in her name should each have 2 little dots above them.   She is an American Buddhist nun, now teaching in Gampo Abbey in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, the first Tibetan monastery in North America.  

On Meditation

When we sit down to meditate, we 

leave behind the idea of the preferred meditator,

the ideal meditation and

preconceived results.  

We train in simply being present.

We open ourselves completely to 

the pain and the pleasure of our life.

We train in precision, gentleness and letting go.

Because we see our thoughts

and emotion with compassion, 

we stop struggling against ourselves.

We learn to recognize when we’re all

caught up and to trust that we can let go.

Thus the blockages created by 

our habits and prejudices 

start falling apart.  

In this way, the wisdom we are

blocking - the wisdom of 

bodhichitta - becomes available.

Pema Chodron

from Awakening the Heart calendar for 2011

The image is the Spirit House at Hope Springs Institute, Peebles, OH, where I my recent two week silence retreat was. spent.  

Rotator Cuff Saga

I met with my shoulder surgeon on Monday.  I told him my shoulder had gotten better and better and that I had virtually no pain.  I asked him to tell me what he would advise his grandma to do.  He said that, at my age, when I had no pain or no real problems, "I wouldn't have the surgery."  I can always come back and reevaluate if I do have problems.  And, we cancelled the surgery, set for March 1st.

I had been thinking of meeting with him for some time, but was afraid I would be considered a nuisance and he would not want to do surgery on me.  (Another doctor had given me that impression earlier.)  I am so glad I followed what my inner spirit was telling me to do.  I had a really good appointment with him; it was very pleasant.

So, a day at a time.

"The King's Speech"/Stuttering

My husband and I recently saw, and I was deeply moved by, the movie, "The King's Speech," with Colin Firth playing Bertie, who became King George VI of England when his brother abdicated the throne for Wallis Simpson.  Bertie suffered from stammering, as he called it.  I always called it "stuttering."  The movie portrayed his struggles to speak fluently to his public, and his sometime stormy relationship with his speech therapist, played by Benjamin Rush.  His wife was supportive and nonjudgmental.

I too stuttered badly well into my 50's.  Although I am still a stutterer, I seldom stutter anymore.  I so identified with Bertie and his struggles.  I saw his body convulse as he tried to get past the block.  I winced in my own pain when his father became very impatient with him, and called out one help after another ("Relax, Just get on with it!" and others.")  I also identified with him as the words might come rushing out, especially if he had not really planned to say them.  My own journey was similar.  As child, my stuttering did not upset me, but as I got older, it bothered me more and more, and that fear and shame--that I would stutter--made it impossible for me to speak fluently.

I remember trying to give a report in journalism class at school, and I stuttered on about every word, and really could not give it.  My teacher kindly asked me if I would like to try again the next day, and I did and was able to give the talk--I suppose the worst had already happened.  I would give reports to my book group and stutter throughout.  I recall being asked to introduce myself at meetings and stuttering, and people saying, "What's the matter, did you forget your name?"  I didn't speak up in class in high school or in college, even though I wanted to.  There was one dear elderly teacher in whose class I must have relaxed, and so I could participate.  I was often afraid to make phone calls, because people would have to wait on the other end while I was blocked.  People would often supply the word they thought I was trying to say.  It was often the wrong word and, although well meant, was somehow humiliating.  There were many, many very painful times throughout my life.

I began to heal in someway, when I returned to college to get my MA in Psychology.  I began to give small talks, often telling my audience that there may be pauses because I stuttered--which relaxed me and I usually didn't stutter much.  Each step in that direction was a step to lessening my fear and shame.  But the main reason for my healing was that I married a man who didn't care if I did/or if I did not stutter; I was fully loved for who I was.  He would help me if I wanted him to or leave me be if I didn't need his help.  I began to heal my shame.

As I look back on my stuttering journey, and remember the movie, I feel deep compassion for both Bertie and me, and honor the tremendous courage we each demonstrated over and over again as we tried again.

NO HIDING HERE! Silence Retreat #2

One of the interesting things that happens to me on a silence retreat--where there are no distractions--is that I fully 'bump into myself.'  There is no hiding.  All of my behaviors that tend to keep me from living as skillfully and purely as I can are there for me to witness.  (They're always present, it's just that I can ignore them.)  I continued to whisper to myself in spite my attempts at silence.  I realized I had expectations of how I thought things should go.  I struggled with sitting in stillness at the fire--my back hurt, my legs and knees hurt.  Do I tough it out and stay, reminding myself that I'm not my body, or do I move (as quietly as I can) to make myself more comfortable?  I finally got mad, and said to myself, "I surrender!"  "I will do it my way!"  I had been trying hard to do it right--and old good girl pattern of mine.  I made this commitment:
To walk ~ trust ~ my own path to Self.  This changed everything, and I relaxed into the silence retreat.  I am including some of my "restive" haiku.

Voices in my head,

Fiery anger boils within.

Stop!  Find your own path!

Hurting and struggling,

Busy in body and mind ~

No space left for me.

Bumbling and stumbling,

Lessons clutter my journey ~

If I will listen.

Sages await ~ for 

me to surrender my mind

and unlock my heart.

01/09/2011

SILENCE RETREAT #1

Ice gleams on the pond,

Dark water lies underneath ~

Mother plays with us.

01/03/2011

I've just returned from a 2 week Silence Retreat at Hope Springs Institute in Peebles OH.  I'll be writing about it in my next few blogs.  

It's an interesting challenge to agree to spend 2 weeks in silence.  The options are reading and journaling  and no talking; journaling and silence; no reading or talking at all!  I choose reading sacred scripture/yoga texts and journaling.  I reread the Upanishads, finished my biography of Swami Rama, and a haiku book I found at the retreat center.  

Every morning and evening, we went to the round Spirit House and lit a fire in the copper fire pit and watched and meditated on the fire until it went out.  It took about an hour for the coals to completely die.  Fire is an important part of meditation and worship in India.  Fire is the Supreme Consciousness/God/Divine Mother/Brahma.  Interesting thoughts come while sitting at the fire.  

It was cold, and I was bundled up in layers (the same ones) every time.  Do I stay and meditate while my leg, back and knee are hurting--trying to withdraw from my senses by going within?  Or do I shift my position and then finally leave before the fire is completely out, paying attention to my body?  I did manage to stay at least 1 time.  

There are beautiful trails at Hope Springs, which I walked everyday and took many pictures.  I walked the labyrinth nearly every day.  I journaled several times a day, and wrote many haiku, and began to think in haiku!  We had warm weather, cold weather, and quite a bit of snow while I was there.  

I walk quietly,

feeling peaceful in the snow ~

a chickadee chirps.

01/07/2011