6/4 - 6/5 My retreat wihin a retreat

Over the weekend, our group went to a retreat at the Norbertine retreat center in Albuquerque, a retreat within our summer intern retreat. I came back with my head floating because it was no longer weighed down with thoughts. The helium is wearing off, returning, wearing off in my normal life, but more of it remains than was their before.

We learned about contemplative posture and were reminded of conscious love - when you are aware that your relationships with other people (and also anything else - earth, job, animals) are about waking eachother up spiritually. What if we all could enter into our relationships with this idea of soulwork in mind? What would a romantic partnership be like? What would the earth be like then? - seeing every relationship as a path to transformation. Part of the work is that constant emptying out. Embracing relationship as a path to accelerating awareness.

Kinosis, we learned, is the name for letting go of knowledge, of being present in the heart more than in the mind.

Acedia, we learned, is the desease in our culture. It means apathy, negligence, absence of care. Not going deeply, Lack of inspiration.
Business often keeps our culture asleep, even as being busy is rewarded in our culture. I should know this. That is why, in my busy travels, I kept my travel blog, because it made me stop and process and reflect deeper on what I was experiencing. That is also why I enjoyed taking photos, again that helps me look closer, especially when I practice contemplative photography. But admittedly, traveling is an escape for me sometimes. A way of staying busy and having so much fun that I can become disconnected. Yet, at the same time, traveling can bring me back into the present because I am so in the moment and can hardly be otherwise. I don't want to be anywhere else, say, when I'm wandering around the streets of Barcelona for the first time, or having an outstanding conversation with a couchsurfer in Poland who seems like a friend from another life.

What combats acedia? For me:
- going for walks and being in nature
- journaling, working on a practice like meditation or writing in a blog or visual image-making
- being grateful and writing down what I am grateful for
- being around babies or animals
- slowing my life down
- getting rid of things I own and limiting what I consume
- yoga
- taking time to notice the everyday

Acedia is the opposite of conscious loving.

What combats acedia for you?

We learned about contemplative practice.
"Contemplative Practice makes it possible for us to do the work we want to do in the world"
This is so true. I know I need to be in this mindset when designing so the work can come from that place. The practice will also "cultivate an inner authority that does not have to be approved by an outer authority"

One's intention, in any action/thought etc. is the most important part.We were asked to think of what our intention would be by the end of the summer for this experience. We were given a colored piece of fabric to make the image for this intention, which would make up our group prayer flag.

During sit, the thought came, what was my intention? I saw in my mind a flock of birds in a V and thought, my intention is to be more present to others when I am with them, like those birds who know intuitively when to give the leader a rest and when to drop back to let someone else take the lead. And my intention is to come out of this internship with a greater capacity to love - this is my overall intention for life and, what I believe, the underlying core of being a spirit in a human body, is. My image that I drew on the prayerflag is of a heart with a flock of birds in a V flying along the V of the heart. And the heart is radiating light from its edges and it is filled with uncluttered space within.