Being Zen
Zen Healing Retreat
Zen Healing Retreat
February 2022 Blog
February 2022 Blog
1st March 2022
Dear One
Happy Spring and Happy St David's Day. In honour of this you will see the first of the daffodil shoots coming through yeah spring has arrived.
The outside world reflects the inner world.
As my reflections, percolations, insights and heightened awareness have refined over the last few months, it seems fitting that an updated version of myself is reflected in new growth coming up into the world.
To see everything more deeply, to experience more fully and from the heart is a transformed way to be.
It is as if the heartfelt opening to forgiveness , release , refining of beliefs and opening to Divine guidance come together to lead me forward and this is reflected in nature as the world comes to life again, the shoots grow,
the buds form in their unique and perfectly designed manner. It all happens without any advice from me!
I began this retreat with absolutely no idea of what it was about, how it wold work or with any expectation in mind. What a joy it is to still have very little idea of what the future holds just a deep `knowingness` that the future doesn't matter, it is how I live today that matters.
Keeping my focus there the rest will fall into place.
xx
Zen Healing Retreat
Zen Healing Retreat
February 2022 Blog
February 2022 Blog
27th February 2022
Dear One
This is the same location as the last picture, but 7 degrees warmer and thawed!
It is as if spring has arrived, well except for the winds that we still have.
The sun has heat in it and my daffs have emerged, will photo soon.
It was quite wonderful this morning, to stop on my walk in various places and watch the trees move and whisper or to stand in sunlight and feel the warmth, to hear the birds singing their joy ( well I am assuming a little here).
To sit on the deck and break the windfall into kindling sized pieces, all of which make life outside fabulous again.
I hadn`t realised how much time I spend on the deck just being.
Being present to nature in all ways, present to my mind and
allowing space for percolation.
Ahh just to be.
"To be or not to be, that is the question"
What is your answer?
See you on the deck, there is a chair just waiting for you.
xx
Zen Healing Retreat
Zen Healing Retreat
February 2022 Blog
February 2022 Blog
25th February 2022
Dear One
In the time I have been writing this blog I have been taking pictures, wow. What an amazing place to live especially when seen through different seasons. The only frustration now is that I cannot share the birdsong with you. So many little birds, singing their wee heids off.... all seems too soon in the vista of a year, but the jet stream is now neurotic and confusing birds ad plants alike,
Its been a funny few days, after writing on 21st and acknowledging there is only one month left I decided to dive in fully and be as disciplined as possible. That lasted two days before a day of driving torrential rain with a freezing wind chill that lasted all day and threw me completely. I `had` to get out, so did, I had to eat foods that I knew are detrimental to a peaceful mind and healthy body....but did I care?
Nope!
It was as if a wave of self sabotage washed over me, now not sure if it is a response to a `good intention` or the effects of an atmospheric low or the ego waving its sword.... but wow, was it pervasive.
What struck me even at the time was how much my mind struggled trying to be good and wanting to be bad, (please excuse dualistic language)
and how, as soon as i went with the ego and headed for the car,
my mind settled and there was a peace.
As Thomas Merton speaks of `false innocence, might this justifiably be called `false peace`?
Thankfully a nights sleep and everything had shifted, not just back to where i was, but with a deep stillness inside. Settling into meditation a deep sigh was exhaled as I reconnected with the breath and the mind settled nestling gently in the heart.
Have an honestly peace filled day
xx
Zen Healing Retreat
Zen Healing Retreat
February 2022 Blog
February 2022 Blog
21st February 2022
Dear One
It is five months since this retreat began, one month, 28 days, to go but it wont end there. This time of integration will help with that.
From my last post I have consciously chosen to think differently and have had the most amazing responses from two different people whom i had judged. Once I saw them through the lens of love `their` attitude to me seemed to change completely. I have to smile as I know it was nothing to do with them but the illusion I was living in and needed to experience in order to justify.
Does this mean we re all masochists? Living to an illusion that does not / can not make us happy and then wondering why we are miserable?
Life becomes a self fulfilling prophecy when we have to be right all the time. This is the illusion...that I am right and, thus, you are wrong so it becomes very easy to see why we are miserable.
We are trapped in separation yet desperate for intimacy of the heart,
union of the mind and soul with another, yet fearing rejection. If they only really knew who we are then ..........
Vulnerability is trusting the other to see beyond the image our fears project,
being vulnerable is the evaporation of the barriers we have built brick by brick with each word or action that our ego judged as unloving.
We build the walls, the Divine sends us people to love who will, if we can trust them enough, dissolve the wall through our willingness to be seen, to be open and to be vulnerable to and with them.
Dear Divine One,
Please help me to be honest, open and true with my loved Ones,
Help me be willing to trust in their love
and in Yours
Thank you
Zen Healing Retreat
Zen Healing Retreat
February 2022 Blog
February 2022 Blog
19th February 2022
Dear One
Today there is peace, calm, sun, blue skies, the heat from the sun starting to thaw the icicles; in the last few days there have been storms,
gales, rain, snow and now ... stillness.
The weather was crazy, much like life without a God in it,
at the mercy of the ego - or, in this case, the weather!
I have not written as I have been percolating, praying and meditating on insights from early in the week.
D`Uh having `known` for years that what we project is always our own issue, it still came as a revelation to me to realise that I live in
such a way as to justify my illusion.
After all, which comes first, the delusion or the life?
Truly the original `chicken and egg` question.
Wooah, it has been a few days , seeing how I not only drew situations towards me to justify my illusion, I also saw every other situation through that lens so life became what I `expected` and I could remain in what Thomas Merton calls `false innocence`.
I see now that the situation I drew to me were the Holy Spirits
attempt to wake me up.
By mirroring a distorted and enlarged image back to me in
the hope I would finally see it.
Oh prayers of gratitude, deep gratitude for this retreat allowing the opportunity and time for me to be willing to own it and also to
`get it` at a much deeper level .
So much to open to
So much to forgive
So much to release
Thank you
A life to see differently
A life to atone
A life to live in love
Thank you
Love is all there is
The Beatles
Zen Healing Retreat
Zen Healing Retreat
February 2022 Blog
February 2022 Blog
15th February 2022
Dear One
Here is the same tree as yesterday from a slightly different angle and sky behind it. Today is cold and damp which is pervasive and, for me, much colder than a dry minus 10.
This retreat time is amazing, it is a sense of moving in an ever-increasing spiral of visiting and revisiting the principles, values and qualities of the spiritual journey with deeper awareness on each return visit.
It is to forgive someone, not just in the ego form of being ` the bigger person`, or being `spiritual`: it is to truly forgive, to see the divine innocence of the other and, as with our children, see beyond the deed/word to the Truth of who they are. To move beyond this and forgive ourselves
for having judged in the first place.
I had an amazing insight yesterday, in conversation with a few friends who are also Course in Miracles students I received some excellent
feedback that I actually heard....
How much feedback over the years, have I not been ready or willing to
hear !.......I dread to think and thank and bless the patience of those who offered it even though my resistance was on steroids!
Anyhoo...I got it. I finally saw how my disconnect manifests in my life.
On every level and in every relationship - recognising where I judge has been such a gift for me. Now to follow Rumi`s advice
"Your task is not to seek for love,
but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself
that you have built against it."
Then and only then can I surrender to the
cosmic ocean of love that is the universe.
Zen Healing Retreat
Zen Healing Retreat
February 2022 Blog
February 2022 Blog
12th February 2022
Dear One
The seeming blue of the sky here belies the fact it is actually a shade of black!
The weather being what it is, one day warm and wet, then dry and cold with snow the next day makes waking up interesting....
The allergic response has faded muchly allowing the `leetle grey cells` to link up again, coherent speech is returning and the ability to concentrate to read returning. What a relief.
One of the gifts of this experience was the discovery that even when the mind couldn`t / wouldn`t function fully my heart was always `with me`.
My heart opened further because of what was happening physically and the effects on thinking, my heart was opened further in compassion.
Com = with and passion = suffering. I was able to be fully with others in their suffering be that physically or mentally in a deeply present way.
Whilst it was a painful and horrible experience it has been a portal to the suffering of humanity and given me the opportunity to meet
energetically with others and in so doing unite with them.
The union being the healing dynamic
I misquote Hafiz , the famous 12th century Sufi who wrote -
"We will all come to God either on a stretcher or dancing
which is our only choice"...
From now on I choose to dance.
Zen Healing Retreat
Zen Healing Retreat
February 2022 Blog
February 2022 Blog
8th February 2022
Dear One
Amazing isn't it. One contact with an allergen and life transformed. I had forgotten how much of a distraction it is to have red swollen eyes, dry and sensitive skin, the urge to rub, itch and shred my face, neck and arms and how challenging it is to settle deeply enough to meditate through it.
But what a salutary reminder of how many people are living with this
on a daily basis. I can recall the delight when I realised it was not just eczema run amok and untreatable, but it is an allergy to cats and
dogs and all I have to do is avoid them.
A couple of years ago I lived with a cat and only then realised the allergy was as bad as it is, I had the lovely naïve idea I would
`get used to it`. I didn't.
It isn't just the red and watery eyes, the puffed and wrinkly eyes - I look like a friendly whale with conjunctivitis.. it is also the change to respiration, the internal sense of everything speeding up, the struggle to think clearly and cogently, the inability to focus fully as there is always an itch waiting to manifest...arrgghhhhh
As you can imagine I am delighted the world is still virtual as with the camera switched off I do not frighten anyone...
and I give thanks that this will run its course.
"God grant me patience,
but hurry"
So now I inhabit a pet free life but can still observe from afar and
rejoice in animals in their world.
What a joy it is.
Zen Healing Retreat
Zen Healing Retreat
February 2022 Blog
February 2022 Blog
4th February 2022
Dear One
The world was silent this morning, snow landing dampening any sounds, cosseting the shed with natures blanket, muffling the sounds
of bird step on the roof.
Silencing the world allowing a different frequency to be experienced.
A shifting from silence into a stillness; from the external absence of
sound to an internal slowing, centering, stilling of the mind from whence the `small still voice of God` can be heard.
The grace filled offering of a pause in which to sit with the Beloved of my awareness.
A beautiful, heart warming, soul enriching space in which to dwell.
Thank you
Zen Healing Retreat
Zen Healing Retreat
February 2022 Blog
February 2022 Blog
3rd February 2022
Dear One
For days now we have had, breezes, winds, gusts, gales and flying detritus and trees. Today there was silence, it was a physical relief and a reminder of the effects of `sound`. Interesting to think that there is no sound to
wind until we `hear` it. Like the Koan "Does a tree falling in a forest
make a sound if there is no-one there to hear it?"
Something invisible becoming visible by its effects, the wind is the cause, the leaves rustling are the effects.
The effects of wind noise seem to limit my ability to hear myself think and thus creating a sense of dis-connect from myself.
Is that the stress that sound can induce, a disconnect?
If so then how to enter silence in a noisy world, to be able to dis-engage form the distraction of discordant sound to remain in audio harmony with my sacred inner place.
Therein is the source of my ponderings for today....
Join me and send my your thoughts
Sssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
xx
Zen Healing Retreat
Zen Healing Retreat
February 2022 Blog
February 2022 Blog
1st February 2022
Dear One
As always it is an honour to write to you and share a little of this amazing journey of healing with you. Last week I was blessed with the `Much Beloved` joining me for a few days. To meditate with another deepens the experience and, for me, helps me surrender more fully.
I was unsure how it would be to have another share my home and life albeit for a short time, yet it was beautiful. Beautiful as we were more open to each other than previously, The connection was deeper and more emotionally intimate.
To share time with another in a more consciously `present` way is a gift beyond price to give and receive. Having slowed down in all aspects of life there was so much more time to be present in.
It was a gift to have glimpsed how this Zen Healing retreat has wrought changes that so exceed anything I could have thought, expected or predicted. It brought a new understanding to the importance of this Integration period. What balance of company and solitude, listening and speaking, action and being is optimal for a calm and centred presence for myself and to be for others.
Being present to the moment