Being Zen
Zen Healing Retreat
Zen Healing Retreat
10th April 2022
Post Script
I am surprised to say there is more.
After the retreat ended I made a sojourn south to catch up with friends and family, see William before returning home to resume `life`.
I left here with an open heart and was met by everyone with their hearts open. Everyone. Had it really been me all along that could only see my closed heart reflected?
Each meeting was a revelation of love, love I had denied myself in my projection.
A project, `The Wise Practitioner` landed during the retreat which was then sent out as proposal for an online course, to The School of Health in Stroud.
A very dear old Sufi friend Carrie joined me on the project, a delight beyond words to work with such a beautiful wise soul.
The proposal was sent with no expectation of any outcome,
trusting fully if it is meant to be...then it will be.
After open hearted loving time with my mother I went to the School
to meet the Principal and development team.
Again I met them open hearted and they were likewise open hearted,
fully supporting the proposal and a collaboration was born.
The gift here is the open heartedness of all whom I encountered and the
trust in the Divine. An awareness that just writing the proposal was Spiritual Practice and, of course, releasing with no
attachment or expectation.
I could not have foreseen these delicious gifts as an outcome of the retreat. However I am deeply blessed to have received them.
I can honestly say, the Retreat was the hardest thing I have ever done and the most powerful transformative experience.
I am honoured and thank all the synchronicity that allowed this time to fall into place.
In gratitude
x
Zen Healing Retreat
Zen Healing Retreat
21st March 2022
Dearest One
My very dearest friend, thank you for all messages, prayer, love and support. You have journeyed with me throughout this Zen Healing Retreat
experience and without you it would not have been as rich as it
was, or, come to that, completed!!
The last few days have been focussed on pulling it all together, seeing how it was entered with no expectations, no ideas of what it,
or the future would hold,
Time to review life and see how the past is different depending on the
lens from which it is viewed allowing resentments large and small to bubble up,
to be seen differently. to be forgiven and released.
The release of attachment to an outcome has been a deep and gentle reward for `Allowing`. Allowing all and every situation to be exactly as it is.
Taking myself out of the equation is to step out of judgment and wanting things my way. Cos of course i`m right!!`
To then be fully present to the eternal moment and know that only
this moment exists.
This on going moment which can only be experience now is all.
The intersection between God`s time and humanity`s.
To have dived into the depth of familiar prayer and liturgy, recognising the power inherent, as not only opening the portal to communication with the Sacred, but also supporting me when the ego is on steroids and
`didn`t want to go there`!
I could not have don this alone, I had a Community, those beautiful souls who brought my mail, food, discussed theology, or the journey, my fellow retreatants who shared their experiences with me,
to friends who wished me well and stood back...
I thank you all for all your support.
It has been the most amazing experience and really defies words even though I have tried here.
Gosh the peace all this offers....!!
"Be Present,
Trust in God,
Be, in Peace."
Thank you Beloved Ones, thank you for your presence and
I hope to see you soon.
with love
jude
x
Zen Healing Retreat
Zen Healing Retreat
18th March 2022
Dearest One
A view of dawn in spring.
These last few days are deeply poignant. Whilst some evening in the dark of winter felt everlasting it feels almost a surprise that the evenings are now drawing out and the curtains are not closed toll nearly 7pm making the `evening ` feel so much sorter.
Also resonating with the circadian rhythm has me waking earlier and earlier, from struggling to get up at 8am,
now bouncing from bed before 6am .
The dark quiet times of reflection and introspection has gone and now the energy rises to step into who I am this year based on the internal alchemy
of transformation from the months of contemplative quiet time.
It is interesting as there has been much acceptance of, grief over, forgiveness experienced and release of the past unfolding.
With each release an inner freedom has expanded perception and deepened my relationship with my God as I understand God.
Trust God more, allowing Divine Flow to float me where I am needed to be and not where I think or want to be.
Ideas have landed and been opened to, expanded on and proposals for projects or courses have been sent out - and released.
The peace that comes with having no expectation of my own and trusting Divine to know what is within the Divine flow and what is not, is incredibly peaceful - it allows for the fun of creating and developing the idea without the ego screaming it has to be this way or that way; without fear or hesitation to rejection or ridicule.
Ahh the joy of a quiet head.
May this year be better than the last,
May you live more closely with your Higher Power,
May you have learned from last year
May you make wiser decisions
May you live more peacefully
May you always feel loved.
xx
Zen Healing Retreat
Zen Healing Retreat
15th March 2022
Dearest One
The clouds of illusion hide the perpetual love of the d\vine form us.
Faith is, I would suggest, believing in the sun even when it is
obscured by mist.
The last few days have been a sense of loss, of grieving the end of this `dedicated` time out. With it have come memories of the past, focused on my children in their childhood . How those days were of long lazy summers,
of family meals around the table, of agreeing and disagreeing, laughing and loving and being together.
This too shall pass,
as has my retreat.
I am opening to any changes that may have occurred in me,
To any changes in my world view that manifest in future behavior wll inform who I am in the future.
Opening here now, with you, to live more `present` as each moment can never be repeated, each smile and connection can never happen the same way again. How many moments did I miss when my children were small. I never saw them grow?
But in my new role as Shennavaigh ( Gaelic for grandmother) I have the chance to be present with my new Ogha ( grandchild) .
The wonders of grandparenthood as many have told me.
Now we have the time to just `Be` with them.
I hope that the effects of the Zen Healing Retreat stay with me and continue to percolate within, distilling and potentising constantly moving towards my better self, one with the Divine.
In simple light living.
xx
Zen Healing Retreat
Zen Healing Retreat
12th March 2022
Dearest One
A couple of horrible days, a sense of disconnection as my mind kept meandering to the future and with it a sense of I cannot do this.
I cannot do the courses I had previously felt called to create,
this gave birth to a feeling of having let people down.
For one day I did nothing, apart from meditations that i struggled to get into, the next day was slightly better and then the third day a sense of being back to normal and fully present to the moment.
How quickly my Zen had evaporated in the illusion of tomorrow.
Yesterday dawned even more brightly and with it some little epiphanies focussed on the highs, which are lovely but often teach nothing and the lows in which are hidden diamonds like the sun on a cloudy day.
In meditation this morning there was a sensation of energetic waves pulsating out of me in concentric circles, and the awareness these are on going for us all , all the time. Every thought we have creates the pulse which is pushed out into the universe and either attracts another or repels them. Sending either love into the world or fear, light or dark and these are picked up by others to enhance wherever they are in their thoughts.
The image was so clear, so vivid and with it came the thought
`Open to the divine feminine within`.
"I am Grace
I am Graceful.
I am Kind
I am Kindness.
I am Peace
I am Peaceful.
I am Gentle
I am Gentleness."
Join me today in honouring the Divine Feminine within.
xx
Zen Healing Retreat
Zen Healing Retreat
8th March 2022
Dearest One
A glorious day here, blue skies and sun sun sun...so I went for a walk, I got to the end of the drive and the wind hit...gusts at gale force speed,
the sand on the road blew up and sandblasted my face...
cheapest and fastest skin peel ever!
A Course in Miracles lesson today
"Love created me
like itself"
Such a beautiful gentle mantra and easy to remember!
Love created you too
xx
Zen Healing Retreat
Zen Healing Retreat
6th March 2022
Dearest One
It never ceases to amaze me how weather can transform the scenery.
It is interesting how subtly things are changing now.
There is only two weeks left on this Zen Healing Retreat now so the
future has, to some extent, be looked at.
There is a trip to my mother to plan, visits with friends on the way there and back to arrange, there is the shop to consider - here I am blessed as I am part time and can decide how many hours a week to work. There is the work at the college to plan for, retreats to address.....
Suddenly the idea this delicious time might end is becoming rather real!
The aim is to look at the future untainted by the past - a challenge indeed - then make plans yet release attachment to any outcome.
All of which will be a huge reflection on the how healing this retreat has been.
As the saying goes
" If you want to make God laugh, tell her your plane"
Hark, the sound of distant giggles!
xx