As I said in a post a week ago, I found 3 whole days on my calendar with nothing on them and I’m taking them all for ME bwah-ha-ha! They start tomorrow, and I’m pushing my little retreat into Monday as well, probably ease back into the world Monday night.
I’m in dire need of some solitude. Haven’t been able to find more than snippets of it, so I’m setting a bunch of time aside. Doing the equivalent of a mountain retreat without having to pack up and go anywhere – and nothing says I can’t drive up to the mountains some afternoon if I bloody well feel like it! No texts, no tweets, no email, no forums. Unless a blood relative needs a kidney in short order I’m not even answering the phone. The next 96 hours are all mine baby!
And I’m ecstatic about that, or at least I would be if I wasn’t so bloody exhausted. I think my body started this retreat a day early, so I’ve had to drag it through a day of wrapping things up, passing off balls or just finding somewhere to set them down for a few days so I don’t have to carry them around in my head all weekend.
I’ve got a poem, well it’s a Dzogchen Tantra, stuck to my bedroom door:
As a bee seeks nectar
from all kinds of flowers
seek teachings everywhere.
Like a deer that finds
a quiet place to graze,
seek seclusion to digest
all you have gathered.
Like a madman
beyond all limits
go wherever you please,
and live like a lion,
completely free of all fear.
It’s as good a summation of my practice and my life as anything I’ve ever come across. I’ll often check in, see what phase of that I’m in at any current point, usually rolling through each phase every few months, though I can remember times being held in one phase for upwards of a year.
For the first time in my life I feel like I’m running all phases at once, or perhaps the cycle is so tight I can’t see the edges. This poor bee is overfull with all she’s gathered, she’s hurling herself like a madwoman into the things that scare her until the fear evaporates, and I’m doing the best I can to digest all of what’s happening in any moment I can catch – a walk down by the river, a few hours blinking slowly while I drink my morning coffee.
But it’s all coming at me so fast I’m hard pressed to get all the seclusion and digestion I need. I’ve got me a bad case of spiritual indigestion and this weekend is my pepto-bismol.
I’ll still be posting on here, ’cause I’ve committed to that. And maybe with a bit of extra digestion time under my belt the writing will come easier – I won’t feel like I have to send stuff out half baked – and I might even double post and catch up on the few days I’m behind after I snapped and said FUCK.
But I’m looking forward to going off the grid. No more input for the next few days. Just me, the trees, and whatever writing is ready to come out on here.
Ahhh…
Valerie Roney 