In a nutshell, it was fantastic!  The food, the setting, the companionship, the wisdom and reflection —  all of it was just fantastic!  I loved watching the women on the retreat blossom in the warmth of a small group of incredible women in an incredible setting.  And, the sunflowers WERE in bloom!  Just glorious.

Sunflowers in Monclar de Quercy

Each morning, we began the day in a stained glass windowed room with meditation followed by stretching… or vice versa.  The day unfolded from there with a variety of activities from one-to-one sessions with me, massage, facials, walks, excursions to simply exquisite places, delicious food, retreat sessions and great good company.

One participant shared that “this trip was, by far, the best trip I’ve ever taken!”

I think that something magical and alchemical happens when you bring together a group of women in a setting away from the familiar.  There were new insights and breakthroughs everyday.

One breakthrough for me was realizing that I absolutely love doing retreats like this in other countries and in our own magnificent country.  By the time it was all over, the participants were saying, “Where are we going next year?  Bali?  The Amalfi Coast of Italy?

There are several amazing places for retreat.  And, I’m am more and more clear about the difference between a retreat and a vacation.  One big difference is a schedule.  On my retreats, we take the support of a flexible schedule.  One primary benefit of having a flexible schedule is that the benefits of the retreat stay long after the retreat is over.  That’s not always the case with a vacation.  Another benefit of a flexible schedule is that you are able to experience and integrate new places, new people and new, more authentic ways of being.

If you’ve not planned a retreat for yourself yet this year, plan one!  Take a look at my book, an illumined life, if you need some support.

If you are a woman and would like to join me on retreat, take part in this survey and help me choose the time and location of our next retreat!  Take the survey now.

Reflecting in Carcassonne

When I was in my twenties, I spent several summers as a guide on the Colorado River in southern Utah.  I’m still unpacking what I learned on the river and from the desert in those summers.  One perfectly obvious lesson came from packing and unpacking my boat.  I was responsible for my boat.  Of course, I could ask for help and it was there in a skinny minute.  But when it came time to get on the river, the oars were in MY hands.

It was up to me to make sure that the boat was balanced.  And we all know that a balanced boat makes for a smoother ride.  It was up to me to stay in the current and navigate the rapids.  How this translates today is that I can pack the boat of my life with all kinds of activities, people, and thoughts that take me out of the current of my life.  And, before I know it, I’m trying my darnedest to paddle my way out of some eddie or I’m rowing backwards through some rapid.

Or, I can get conscious about what I’m putting in the boat of my life — today.  I can make sure that my boat is balanced with the three essential keys to life balance and personal peace – centering practice, self reflection and body care.  I can anticipate any rapids that I might be approaching and make the necessary adjustments to navigate those life challenges with greater equipoise and greater peace.  This is made so much easier if I’m already rowing along with centering practice, self reflection and body care.

When I’m taking care of myself through regular centering practice, self reflection and body care – the boat of my life floats along life’s current with much greater ease.  If I neglect one of these, I’m sunk.    Though I’d really like to unpack this topic more completely, a blog post just doesn’t lend itself to this exploration.  That’s why I created the Reclaim Your Life 21 Day Challenge.  Stay tuned.  I’ll tell you more later.

In the meantime, what about you?  How’s the boat of your life packed today?  Are you making sure to pack your boat well?  What one thing can you do today that will help you feel more centered?

He writes, “While washing the dishes, you might be thinking about the tea afterwards, and so try to get them out of the way as quickly as possible in order to sit and drink tea.  But that means that you are incapable of living during the time you are washing the dishes.  When you are washing the dishes, washing the dishes must be the most important thing in your life.  Just as when you’re drinking tea, drinking tea must be the most important thing in your life.” (Miracle of Mindfulness, p. 24)

With such great beings as Brother Lawrence, and our own contemporaries, such as Thich Nhat Hanh, we are in good company in our search for the Truth.  It is through the glimpses of the Divine that philosophers, poets and saints have experienced and shared that we find assurance that such a search is not in vain.

From their yearning to know Truth, they seem to have attained great understanding and found their way Home.  It is our good fortune that they left many clues on the path.  The reverence with which they approached the moments of their lives, continue to inspire seekers today.

Such seekers seem (for who among us truly knows the experience of another)  to deliberately approach life with an appreciation of the uniqueness of each moment, each circumstance, each person.

We, too, can let each moment become a moment of deliberate, conscious living.  We, too, can learn, with practice, patience, and perseverance, to greet the Presence in the present and welcome that formless Presence regardless of the form.  We, too, can let each moment’s experience become a way of seeking out Presence and open to that experience whole-heartedly.  Even the joys and the sorrows, opening to what is present.

Not one of us escapes heart-ache and truly not one of us lives every single moment in that kind of pain.  It seems that in opening to be with what is as it is, ‘what is’ seems to change.  All this to say, say ‘hello’ to this moment with your whole heart.

Here’s the good news, not all of life is suffering.  What this means in terms of being in life with more equipoise, with greater equanimity,  is that as you practice being in life with friendly detachment, the ups and downs of life’s storms – - – even the emotional storms have less power over you.

Rarely does an emotional storm just hit.  Imagine you are standing in your doorway looking out on a bright sunny day and then all of a sudden, I mean in an instant, you are swept out of your doorway into the broiling fury of a hurricane.

Storms don’t really work like that.  First you might notice a cool wind, then the clouds start to shift, then the sky gets dark, then it starts drizzling, then it starts raining.  Then the thunder and lightening, then maybe there’s hail and furious winds, by now, you should be taking cover, right?  Gradually, the storm dissipates.  The thunder and lightening rolls away, the rain lessons and then becomes a sprinkle and soon the sun is back out with it’s warmth and promise.

Emotionally, it’s much the same.  Notice the choice points every step of the way.  There are choice points where you can notice the thought (maybe it has something to do with attraction or aversion), you can right then practice being with the thought and the emotion while it’s a breeze before it becomes a wind.  As a physician friend said, you begin to activate Heisenberg’s Principle (I think that’s correct).  Watching changes what you are watching.  Wanna read that again?  Watching, changes what you are watching.  When you observe something, what you are observing changes.

I think of this as kind of naming the beast of whatever you are experiencing.  You name it.  Then just practice being with it — as the ocean is with it’s own waves.  It’s not upset that there’s a wave.  It’s just there.  It’s part of the ocean, but it’s not the whole ocean.  So it is with our own upsets.  So it is with the circumstances of our lives.

This is much much much easier to do if you have a formal meditation practice.  I know I tend to get on a soap box about this.  So I’ll not rant too long.  If you don’t meditate or engage in some centering practice.  Start.  You will be so happy you did.  I’ve got a couple of free recordings under free stuff to help you get started.  Soon, I’ll have more resources so stay tuned.

Then there’s all the times we just don’t want to do the work – there’s the play of aversion in having to work at being in our life with greater ease.  Again, EVERYONE on the planet has some thing in their life that they just don’t want to do.  We all get  tired of doing — there is aversion to one experience and attraction to another.  Be easy with yourself in these times.  Be a kind friend to yourself.

I don’t think that the attraction and aversion play is really the problem.  I think it’s our holding on to our attractions and aversions that create problems.  Just play with noticing the play of attraction and aversion in your life.  Notice how you are attracted to one experience and averse to another.  You needn’t try to change it.  It’s a natural part of human life.  And, these moments of being attracted to one experience and averse to another contribute to our feeling off — not quite centered.  Notice, and practice letting go.

If you’ve been reading for a while, you know I’m facilitating a women’s retreat very soon in France.  (Wanna come?  We have ONE opening!).  Anyway, last night, I was looking for airfare and noticed my shoulders beginning to hunch up, there was a tightness setting in around my mouth and eyes.  Then there were the barest of responses to my loving and patient husband.  My aversion to the high airfare was starting to get the best of me.

Can you see how it’s not only the big aversions that throw us off.  It’s the little aversions and attractions as well.

After a while, after spending a little too long in this play between my frustration because of being caught up in the attraction to easy low fare and the aversion to high fares, I took a deep breath and closed my lap top.  With practice,  maybe next time, I’ll just watch the attraction and aversion like waves in the ocean of my experience and book a flight.

1.  When is the best time to do each thing?

2.  Who are the most important people to work with?

3.  What is the most important thing to do at all times?

Many, many people tried and failed to answer these seemingly simple questions.  The emperor set off in search of the answers himself.  He was told of a holy man who lived as a hermit and decided to find the hermit.  Surely, such a man would be able to answer the questions.

When he finally reached the holy man, the emperor found him stooped, working in his garden.  The hermit listened attentively to his questions, patted the emperor on the shoulder, and continued digging.  The emperor, although perplexed by the hermit’s indifference to him, offered to help the old man.  The hermit rested while the emperor dug.  Many hours passed this way.

After some time, a wounded man approached.  The emperor helped him, and dressed his wounds.  In the morning, the wounded man regained consciousness and asked for water, which the emperor promptly fetched from the stream.

To the surprise of the emperor, the wounded man asked for the emperor’s forgiveness.  The wounded man explained that he was a sworn enemy of the emperor who had killed his brother and seized his property.  He had set off to kill the emperor but was caught by the emperor’s attendants who wounded him.  After hearing the wounded man’s story, the emperor and the wounded man reconciled and the emperor ordered his attendants to return the man safely to his home.

The emperor approached the hermit, again asked his questions.  The hermit smiled telling the emperor that his questions had already been answered.

The most important time was the time spent digging in the garden.  For had the emperor not stopped and helped the old man by digging in the garden, he would have been attacked.

The most important person was the hermit and the most important pursuit was to help the hermit.  Later, the most important time was the time spent helping the wounded man.

The most important person was of course the wounded man.

And the most important pursuit was dressing his wounds, for had he not done that the emperor would never have had the chance to reconcile with the man.

The old holy man told the emperor, “Remember that there is only one important time and that is now.  The present moment is the only time over which we have dominion.  The most important person is always the person you are with, who is right before you, for who knows if you will have dealings with any other person in the future.  The most important pursuit is making that person, the one standing at your side, happy, for that alone is the pursuit of life.” (From Leo Tolstoy’s short story The Three Questions)

It seems that in order to discover the wisdom hidden in such a story (as well as the stories of our own lives) and drink the nectarean wisdom infused throughout such tales, we must slow down and contemplate the story.

The obvious message for being present and giving oneself fully to each unfolding moment offers an enticing entry into such contemplation.  Yet, simply glancing at the notion that the “pursuit of life” is solely to bring happiness to the person at our side can raise the hackles of most of us who have been immersed in the pop psychology literature of the last couple of decades.

When I first read the story I felt myself bristle at the notion of trying to make another happy, after all, we are each responsible for ourselves, and our state of mind.  However, upon considering how I would be with the person at my side if I knew her to be God, if he revealed himself to me as the essence of Divine Consciousness.  Might then my pursuit indeed be to bring the Lord happiness?  Only with a quiet mind have I glimpse the purity of such a pursuit.  Again, I’m reminded of the value of a daily meditation practice.

Each one of us is faced with the challenge to slow down the rushing activity of the mind and the body and taste the nectar of the moments that make up daily life.  For only in the present moment does Love, does the Greatest Mystery, reveal Itself.  Only in the present can we glimpse Grace sneaking in.

As I mentioned in a previous Sacred Threads post, I sometimes feel as though I am playing a great game of hide and seek with God.  If I let myself be still enough even in the midst of activity, I spot God and find mySelf at Home, in Heaven, in my heart.  Enough of these moments strung together are like perfect pearls joining to form an exquisitely simple yet beautifully elegant strand of jeweled moments that make up the garland of my life.

photo by Michal Marcol

Having a cleaner vision, with less emotional static, I have been able to interact with her with less tension, more understanding, and a steady confidence in our shared love.  I feel like I’m interacting with Grace, rather than through clouds of pain and disappointment.  Again, PHEW!

Cleaning the windows of the heart requires awareness, diligence, humility, and skillfulness … probably other qualities as well.  Cleaning the windows of the heart is a kind of personal hygiene that many of us neglect or put off.  Yet it is just this type of cleaning that ushers us into interacting with grace.

Most of us brush our teeth everyday.  We get that personal hygiene is solely our responsibility.  Most of us don’t wait for someone else to brush our teeth or even tell us when it needs to be done.  Yet, when it comes to taking care of the various emotional waves and storms that move through our hearts and relationships, there’s hesitation.  There’s denial.  There’s avoidance.  In fact, many of us may differ on what it means to take care of the waves and storms of the heart.

From my perspective, this “taking care of” means first and foremost taking responsibility for.  How we feel, our emotional reactions are ours – we own them.  No one else is responsible.  And in that responsibility lies our power to “take care of.”  When we assume ownership of our emotional experience, when we take responsibility for our emotional experience – we access our response-ability, our ability to respond.

So, if we look at those four qualities – awareness, diligence, humility, and skillfulness – we can see how important each are if we are to clean the windows of the heart.  Washing away the debris of the pain from unmet expectations, for example, is made easier if you are aware of your emotional responses to your life experiences as they are happening.  Diligence means to me that you know that it’s not going to just take one washing to get a clean heart – some pains take some time to make sure that all the streaks are cleaned away.  With humility, there is a kind of willingness to be wrong, to be ‘less than’ your ego’s vision of you.  Well, there’s more I could say about the value of humility.  For the time being, I’ll leave it there.

Now we’re left with skillfulness.  These days, there are numerous skillful means of cleaning the windows of the heart – Z Point, Mindfulness, TAT, EFT, Hypnosis, Self-Talk, —- and so many more.

What do you do to keep the windows of your heart clean?

Stay tuned.  I’m in the process of putting together a couple of recordings to help you clean windows.  If you don’t want to wait, check out my shop for some resources that can help you right now!

I find silence to be nourishing to my soul.  It gives me a chance to hear the rumblings beneath the surface of my mind and uncover new insights, places in my life that are calling for my attention as well as helping me to become more present for my life.

This silence doesn’t always mean just an outer silence, but an inner silence — a willingness to be quiet for a while and listen —

In this most recent listening, I found some places in me that were hurting a bit and just needed a little time to be noticed.  I noticed the excitement I’m feeling about a couple of projects I’m working on (Provence Retreat for Women & an audio series, Reclaim Your Life).  And, I found myself delighting in the simple pleasures of life ~ my family, my dog, & my breath free of seasonal allergies

Huxley

If you gave yourself just a bit of inner and outer silence, I wonder might you discover.  What’s calling for attention in your life?  Consider practicing a bit of silence and see what you discover.

you must look upon everything as Brahman, and Brahman alone.”

~ Crest Jewel of Discrimination

Brother Lawrence mastered this teaching as he made it his practice to behave in each moment “as if there were no one but Thee and Me.”  When I offer the present moment my one pointed attention and greet the present moment with ultimate abandon, free from the gnarled cage of expectation, that is the moment I find God being God in myriad shapes and forms.  That is the moment I feel the peace of the Presence in the present.

Greeting the Beloved in the present moment with respect is a doorway through which we can all “practice the Presence of God.”  Within this sublime practice of mindfulness, any one of us can begin living as if there were none but “Thee and Me” in the world.  With this kind of awareness, we cannot help but welcome God in His all-pervasive form with myriad faces and varied costumes.  Each moment weaves the sacred tapestry of holiness.

Yet, I sure tend to get distracted with a single thread of thought, activity, or sense pleasure and mistake the thought, activity or sense pleasure for the “Real Truth” rather than our experience of Being as Truth.  Similarly, I can get carried away by my ideas about God and Truth rather than absorbing myself in the experience of Being as a portal to the Truth, a portal to LOVE.

Dostoevsky, in his book The Brothers Karamazov, knew the blessing of beckoning love in the present moment.  He wrote, “Love all God’s creation, both the whole and every grain of sand.  Love every leaf, every ray of light.  Love the animals, love the plants, love each separate thing.  If thou love each thing thou wilt perceive the mystery of God in all.”

These days, we have access to great teachers on practicing presence.  Among my favorites is Thich Nhat Hanh.

If you are interested in playing more in this field of mindfulness, consider joining me in Provence.  Or if you want to give the gift of a lifetime to your mother, wife, sister or friend, invite her to join me.

On this cold, wintry day, I’m reminded of a very different day.   After a long weekend of tiring work, a friend of mine and I took a day of rest on the beach.  After a long walk, we lay side by side gazing at the sky.  My body felt still and my mind quiet as I lay on the beach with the sun penetrating my skin and warming me to the center of my bones.

I remember breathing  deeply and taking in the great expanse above us.  After some time, I asked her if she could see thousands of tiny dots of light.  They seemed to dance before the eyes.  She saw them too.

Together, we gazed at the sky in wonder.  I felt myself as made of the same particles of light that danced before me.  I experienced a dissolving of the illusion that my friend and I were somehow different than the sand, the ocean, and the sky.  I was filled with a sense of quiet wonder and complete love, a kind of love that seemed to pour itself over me like warm honey.

This kind of gazing is in fact a centering technique drawn from an ancient Hindu text, The Vijnana Bhairava.

Many texts of ancient India have been translated in the last hundred years or so from Sanskrit to English, providing yet more doorways through which we can enter the Garden.  The Vijnana Bhairava is a collection of dharanas, centering techniques.

These techniques not only center a seeker, but open her to experiencing the wonder of the Divine Presence.  The English Translation of this text has a captivating title, “The Yoga of Delight, Wonder, and Astonishment.”

One of my favorite centering techniques from this text is the practice of gazing, without blinking as much as possible, at the sky.  “If one makes himself thoroughly immobile beholds the pure (cloudless) sky, at that very moment, O goddess, he will acquire the nature of Bhairava (Supreme Consciousness).” (The Yoga of Delight, Wonder and Astonishment, p. 78).

As each object of Nature carries the energy of God, the Presence of Divine Consciousness, it follows that each object of Nature can then carry the wisdom of the Divine.  However, to experience that recognition we must stop, but for a moment, to consider Nature to be a manifestation of God.

Even the path of the sun in the sky, lends itself to revealing the mysterious Presence of God in its very predictability.  Further contemplating the sun, I have experienced its generosity in the sensation of warmth on my skin, or in the taste of fruit in remembrance of the sun’s rays.

The ways in which we can contemplate Nature and find solace in it is endless.  In fact, images of Nature, simply gazing at Nature, can naturally return us to a state of peace.  Such images are abundant, infinite and easily accessible. Walking outside and gazing up at the sky, or simply sitting where you are and remembering the vastness of the sky can lure you to the experience of knowing you are in the Presence.

The Native American reverence for Nature is well known and continues to gain respect as many look to deepen their understanding and challenge previously held beliefs and assumptions.

Consider the wisdom in this statement from the Mohawk Nation, “We are shown that our life exists with the tree life, that our well being depends on the well-being of the vegetable life, that we are close relatives of the four-legged beings.  In our ways, spiritual consciousness is the highest form of politics . . . We believe that all living things are spiritual beings.  Spirits can be expressed as energy forms manifested in matter.  A blade of grass is an energy form manifested in matter – grass matter.  The spirit of the grass is that unseen force which produces the species of grass, and it is manifest to us in the form of real grass.”(15)

Any aspect of Nature, from a single acorn, to the changing seasons can teach us more of the Truth of who we are.  What if we were to listen, and let God be God in any and all manifestations before us?  Might then we glimpse the beauty and peace of the Eternal in the Present moment?

P.S.  If you are interested in learning and experience moments of Divinity in Nature, consider joining my Women’s Retreat in Provence, June 2010.  Only 3 spots left!