Right now it feels as if I may be writing this to simply catch what I experienced before it is lost in the winds of reality.
It’s Monday now. I just got home on Friday from having spent nearly three weeks at Karmê Chöling, a Shambala retreat center in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom. I feel like I’ve lived in at least two totally different worlds in the past month, maybe more. First, let’s just acknowledge the simple beauty, age, and rural quiet of Vermont. The entire state has only about 64,000 people more than the county than I live in here in Wisconsin. Of course, the land area of the state is much smaller than Wisconsin, but things are quiet in the Northeast Kingdom and that’s a beautiful thing. I never knew how loud Madison was until I came back home after nearly a month of listening to the mourning doves sing and the rain fall on the roof. It was good to reconnect, to hear the birdsong in my heart, see the stars, explore the hills, and even to feel the rain. Now, I am wondering how I keep connected, how I maintain the peace I gained, and how I move forward.
I arrived at the retreat center on August 5th. I would be spending the next few weeks volunteering, meditating, learning, and just simply being in the space. The next day their silent retreat program began. While I wasn’t a participant in the program and didn’t make a full commitment to silence, as a volunteer I joined with staff and my fellow volunteers in a supportive silence which meant that we didn’t speak while in the presence of program participants. It was a quiet first week and just what I needed. I knew coming in that I was worn out, but I had no idea just how worn out I was. In my first days I was napping for two or more hours a day plus sleeping nine or more hours at night. I spent my days with meditation time for about an hour in the mornings and evenings, roughly five hours of volunteering in the kitchen, with garden tasks, or cleaning, and the rest of the day was mine to determine. Much of my time I spent coloring mandalas in a coloring book I’ve had for many years but have never found the time to do much with. It was another form of meditation for me. I also got out my camera which has hardly been out of its case in the last few years and just played, taking photos of flowers and mushrooms and whatever else struck my fancy. I read too, my book of choice for this trip was Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body by Daniel Coleman and Richard Davidson. And, as I said earlier, I slept, a lot.
Why spend three weeks meditating, coloring, sleeping, reading, and most excitingly getting to vacuum with the “Ghostbusters vacuum” for fun? Well, for me I went to Karmê Chöling for a couple of reasons. 1. I’m a special education teacher and I knew I needed to reset before starting the school year if I were to serve my kids in the best way possible and maintain my own wellbeing. 2. My own wellbeing, I have epilepsy that is impacted by stress. There is growing research showing that meditation can change how our brains respond to stressors both in the short and long term. 3. I wanted to learn, build my practice, and connect with others.
I knew I was taking a risk going on a retreat like this. When I was kid, after the deaths of my mom and grandma, I made a promise to myself to never let anyone into my heart. It’s taken most of my life to break that promise and to heal from having made it. Meditation is breaking the promise. It is letting myself into my heart, opening the pathway to allow love in and out. It was during my last week in Vermont that I felt the barrier break. Some of my new found friends and I had planned a day trip and our plans had just fallen through. It was a disappointment to be sure, but not a huge deal. But something triggered in me. One moment I was sitting out on the front porch enjoying my time with this new found group of friends and the next I could feel the tears coming and was having a hard time eating my lunch. I slipped away to my room to cry on my own for a few hours. Then, after I started to feel a little more ready for the world, I went back out to the porch with my markers and coloring book and started in on my mandalas again. One of those friends, Sage, joined me on the porch and began to apologize for what she’d thought had made me cry. I told her what really brought my tears and she sat with me and listened and we shared stories of our lives. It struck me how things I’d thought I’d gotten beyond years ago could still hurt me and how great a gift it is to be able to let those things go and to have someone to listen and care.
I looked in the mirror the next day and saw something I hadn’t seen before or at least not in a long time. My eyes had a sparkle they’d not had in I don’t know how long. It reminded me of the twinkle in my Dad’s eyes when he’d laugh. It felt good. I felt lighter. I felt relieved of some deep sorrows and pains.
Now, when I was in Vermont I sat in meditation one to two hours each day, spent another one to three hours coloring mandalas, stayed away from social media and mostly away from computer screens in general, not to mention I got to be a part of Chay Drol, a Buddhist healing ceremony, as well as the dissolution of a sand mandala, and I was just spending time out in some of the most beautiful rural, wooded hills in the northeastern part of the US. The experience was working for me. I felt that I was healing. The questions remain though. How do I maintain that healing? How do I continue to heal?
I wish I had great answers. Right now all I have are little pieces. I’m dropping my social media consumption significantly by cutting out my checking in before work and just asking myself if I really need to do this before I go online. I’m increasing my daily meditation time from fifteen minutes daily to probably thirty minutes each day with longer periods on Sundays of one to two hours at my local Shambala Center, and monthly gatherings with a mindfulness group at the school where I work. I’m trying to keep my creative path open by coloring, knitting, and coming back here to write again. Maybe life will allow me another retreat someday. Who knows? For now, I am simply breathing.
Have you gone on a retreat and experienced this wondering of “now what?” on your return to reality? I would love to hear how you’ve dealt with the transition and how it’s worked for you.
(Please share your comments with Amy on her blog: Sustainable Life in Action )
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