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Breitenbush Retreat (and bringing joy back home)
I returned home last night from eight days away, five of which were truly on retreat — just meditating, bathing in hot springs, hiking, eating well, practicing yoga, and celebrating with dance and music. To see pictures, click here.The focus of the week was honoring the past and engaging in the present so as best to serve the future.
We left Breitenbush Hot Springs mid-afternoon on Thursday. Rather than take a red eye, I stayed Thursday night at an airport hotel and took an early morning flight home on Friday. I woke early Friday morning and rested in meditation to ease the shock of going from an off-the-grid community in the forest to an airport hotel. This rainbow glowed over the airport while I was waiting for the hotel shuttle to take me there for my flight.
The rainbow reminded me to carry the deep joy of the retreat home with me.
Notes on a Meditation
and she could count the waves…
On the Way to William Penn House for Tuesday Night Yoga Practice (with a Detour to Stand with the People’s Filibuster)
The filibuster and related activities, including an interfaith vigil on Wednesday the 28th, continues until Thursday. Details on various Facebook Pages–ACLU, NARAL, Planned Parenthood, Move On, and others.
Mostly I will be working during the scheduled times, but I will head over outside of my work day again. Senator Chris Murphy was on his way to dinner with friends from Connecticut who had spent the day doing citizen lobbying–telling their story about why keeping and improving on the ACA was important to them. Senator Murphy said that he’d heard people were outside and felt he needled to at least stop by and connect. He said this is just the beginning, don’t let them tinker and declare a victory if they only deprive 5 or 10 million people from getting insurance; he said keep it up; he’d like to see millions of people coming to D.C. and making their voices heard. I was starting to get caught up in listening and then realized it was time to be at William Penn House.
- Art and Culture | Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Meditation | Photos
Another Self-Induced India Photo Flashback (Roadside Temples)
Another self-induced India photo flashback after a long work day reading and writing at the computer with breaks only for shoveling snow and for eating and cleaning up.
We were traveling on the bus when I saw the Durga temple (the fifth photo–the one with the white glare and flat sky, but an incredible Durga). I suggested to my seatmate that he take a picture with his better camera. I recall it quite reasonably and correctly being pointed out to me the flat, white heat of the midday, humid sky and the glare off of the window would make it impossible optimally to show the intricacy and vividness of the temple.
I snapped a picture anyway. I was seeing things at angles coming and going and with whatever the light was at the moment. I likely wasn’t ever going to be there again and certainly not any time soon.
Sometimes the bus would pause in just the right place for a perfectly composed shot, but mostly it didn’t. In this, the act of taking these photos was much like other aspects of life and practice. Our path is not always certain. Sometimes it is hard to see because there is too little light or too much. Sometimes we have something obscuring our vision. Sometimes we are going too fast and only notice just before it would be too late for that turning.
But even with vision turned or obscured, we are always experiencing something. How can we make the best of each moment of experience? For me, it is meditating and bringing the spacious awareness of meditation to what I am witnessing. Taking photographs helps me witness in a certain way, too.
