Without sharing the others personal details, it is my hope
through this blog post you will be able to have a sense of the depth of
experience from the week-long retreat at Camp Geneva, in Holland.
Right there
on the shores of Lake Michigan, every season was present—including sun and
warmth and bitter wind and rain and snow! Every season of our innermost being
was present, too. As magnificent as the physical setting was, the inner radiance
was truly most beyond words.
The focus of the first two days was on conscious aging. We heard that the human life can be summed up this way: "Aging is from diapers to
diapers. We start out needing help eating and walking, and we end up needing
help eating and walking. Even with the best of planning, you have no control."
Although our personal lives are filled with history, our
inner being remains untouched by the ravages of past days and decades, allowing
love to shine forth through those cracks and crevices. Sitting in meditation,
you remember who you really are. You feel your heart open to divine love. Day
after day we were each giving respect to and honoring our true essence. We had
the opportunity to create our soul collage. It was truly a memorable experience.
We led one another in a trust walk, and we played a round
of Jenga. The game has 54 blocks. The goal is to remove one block at a time and stack it on top. In the
official game, the last player to stack a block on top without making the tower
fall is the winner. The suspense builds and the tower keeps getting taller. Our
instructions
were to notice when our body would contract, and to remember to relax and truly
enjoy the play.
My past work as a doula (childbirth coach) came in very
handy as one of our group said she had always been called a Nervous Nelly. So
she could relax and have fun, I kept reminding her to breathe and kept saying,
"It is only a game. At some point it all falls down and we say yeah."
I had such fun with my two partners, Clare and Cathy!
If you
let go a little, you will have a little peace.
If
you let go a lot, you will have a lot of peace.
If
you let go completely, you will have complete peace and freedom.
~
Ajahn Chah
