Silent Meditation Retreat with Josh Summers and Terry Cockburn, Spirit Fire Retreat Center, 8/27-9/2/2018.
Late August in Vermont 2018
Oh how I resisted coming to this Retreat! For several months I prepared – read, practiced Yin, listened to Podcasts, emailed Terry, took care of clients and stressed-stressed-stressed about leaving Sophie. In fact, the very morning I dropped her off at the kennel, I would have cancelled if I could have.
The drive to Leyden MA was beautiful, as was the weather. [And I will tell you right now, if you ever want to attend a retreat or take your retreat somewhere, run do not walk to Spirit Fire Retreat, https://www.spiritfireretreatcenter.com. You will fall in love with the Center as well as your new BFFs, Steve and Tim, who quite possibly literally and spiritually make the difference.]
Terry (https://freeportyogaco.com) warned this would be the hardest endurance event I’ve done. It was. It was so damn hard. The early days gave new meaning to sufferfest! But endure we did.
One night near the end of the week I journaled: “I am learning and evolving. Though the days have crept by, I do hope the practice has been enough and will become a part of me. But practice may be the key concept here. As Josh (https://joshsummers.net) counseled, ‘practice what you teach.’ And silence? It is so much easier in reality! As a group of individuals who had, for the most part, not even known each other’s names, the connection we shared was woven in a web of silence, a life-line of silence, so much stronger – and immediately so – than the polite chatter of new relationship”.
Reviewing my journal I note that early entries were hectic, worried, stressed, grasping for intention and some kind of significant practice. I noted physical discomfort, even pain. I blamed the restlessness on too much of the excellent coffee, but when I tried cutting back, it made no difference. Skip to the last full day: “I have found all 3 sittings this morning to be ‘energized,’ meaning no fatigue or struggle, balanced, grounded – far from the early days as restless or ‘itchy’. Equanimity: a warm embrace of what is going on.”
Perhaps each of us everywhere sincerely wishes to make the world a better place for our having lived in it. Even if our individual efforts appear futile, collectively? … who knows? I love that Josh gifted us with these words: “Our practice is a form of social action.” And so it is.
