“The soul should always stand ajar, Ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.” – Emily Dickinson
We retreat so we can connect with the divine within ourselves and recognize the divine in the world.
- The moment in time when our inner world meets the outer world presents an opportunity for our spiritual lives to unfold.
- It is in these ordinary moments of daily living that our spiritual retreat practice can blossom.
How we tie and untie our shoes is our spiritual life. And sometimes we manage our daily life with more grace and ease than other times.
- When things are going smoothly, it’s easier for us to remember to breathe, to open our hearts, and to practice retreats.
- Other times, often when we need it the most, we lose our way on the spiritual path.
Our ability to be consistently kind in our daily lives is a reflection of our progress along the inner spiritual path.
- Those moments when we’re not kind or when we’re reactive, are our teaching moments.
- our opportunities for a spiritual lesson
- We just have to be aware and awake enough to get the message.
Giving ourselves that pause, opens up a possibility for us – the possibility to reconnect to our deeper selves, our spiritual reality, and to respond from that greater source of wisdom.
- We have herds this advice before – “to stop and breathe” – from teachers representing each of the major religions of the world.
- It goes beyond the cultural belief systems of these different faiths and springs forth from the essence of spiritual teaching.
Re-source: Retreat
an act or process of withdrawing especially from what is difficult, dangerous, or disagreeable : a place of privacy or safety : refuge
Retreats can offer an interior spaciousness and silence – an inner sense of sacredness.
- To live in the world, while being continuously aware of the divine within me, within you, and within all, is my spiritual path.
- Retreats help us travel along that path.
- Real faith, forgiveness, gratitude, healing, intuition, joy, love, patience, peace, relaxation, self-acceptance, and self-care come from within and are independent of situational circumstances.
- We can choose to cultivate these qualities, no matter what the external circumstances are.
To keep this perspective requires a very broad capacity to embrace whatever is, and open ourselves to accept those challenging situational circumstances.
“To discover the capacity to bless whatever is in front of us, this is the enlightenment that is intimate with all things.”
Jack Kornfield (A Path with Heart)
To embrace what is, without resistance, without judgement, without even hesitation, but solely because this is what is; this is the spiritual path.
- It’s a path of transformation, and we are transformed as we journey.
“Our real journey in life is interior: It is a matter of growth, deepening, and of an ever greater surrender to the creative action of love and grace in our hearts.”
Thomas Merton
craving and resource from “20 Minute Retreats” by Rachel Harris
