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
