Valerie Roney

So, I’ve started off my retreat with the equivalent of sleeping off a giant cerebral turkey dinner. I can’t remember the last time I had such a long non-drug-induced sleep. Like an over-stimulated baby who’s collapsed into slumber, shutting down new input so they can map some new neurons in peace, I can’t stop sleeping. And when I am awake I feel drifty and dreamy. Deliciously grateful I can just let myself wander in this space, I don’t have to push through the vapours to try and DO anything.

Yesterday I worked really hard to toss every mental ball out of my court I could. And it’s payed off. It’s quiet here, inside my head as well as around my house. Space and peace are my constant quiet companions. I’m amazed at how quickly it all dropped away, how happy I am, how soon I recovered my sense of groundedness.

One interesting thing has come out of the silence so far. A dream I recalled upon waking this morning (and subsequently fell back asleep for 3 hours), the only thing I can remember from my 12 hr sleep, something that’s still with me now.

I was walking up a pathway, with little steel pots lined up along the boarders – each steel pot was turned upsidedown covering a little rosebush, “protecting” it. As I tipped a pot over to see the rose inside I thought: well this poor plant can’t grow under this! and kicked it aside so the light could get at it.

It wasn’t until this afternoon I realized, what a beautiful metaphor. The shelters we build to protect ourselves smother us. It’s only through the willingness to be vulnerable that we will thrive and find our strength.

And as I think about all the steel pots lined up in my dream, I also realize a good portion of what I’m on this planet for is to help kick the pots off the rest of those rosebushes. Be careful what you read on here my friends, your little shelter’s tipping…