Women's weekend retreat workshops

There are two scheduled retreats for 2009 at The Sir William Mackenzie Inn in Kirkfield Ontario. Esana and I host a wondrous weekend with the focus on presence. This is a residential weekend in a gorgeous inn, with fresh organic meals, and lots of active meditations and exercises designed to bring you into your own sweet fullness.
The dates are:
May 1 to 3
and
October 30 to November 1 , 2009
This link will take you to the flier and registration form: WOMEN'S RETREATS, 2009

THE TRUTHFUL BODY

The body doesn’t lie because the body doesn’t know how to lie. The body experiences life directly without judging it good, bad or indifferent. Because we have been conditioned and often traumatized out of responding, in a natural and immediate fashion, to the events in our lives, there is a need to become reacquainted with the many dialects of the body’s language.
It has always seemed absurd to me that our body, which is in fact the “home” of whatever it is that animates us; call it spirit, soul, consciousness or ego, gets short shrift when it comes to interest and attention.
How do we speak to the body? The more important question is, how do we listen to the body? Hands-on practitioners of various healing modalities each have their own unique way of listening to the patient or client’s body. Cranial Sacral manipulation in particular requires a deep listening; a particular stillness on the part of the practitioner, in order to “tune in” to the subtle movements of the body. Massage therapy, osteopathy, chiropractic, physiotherapy all have languages that once learned enables the practitioner to hear what the body wants and needs to heal itself. But what of simple listening - we know when we need to eat, to sleep, to wake up, to attend to basic bodily functions, but what of the need to dance, to be still, to float in water, and perhaps more importantly, explore the minutiae of sensation throughout the body. Our culture discourages displays of emotion as clearly as it discourages sensuality; a true living in the world of the senses and feelings. That sort of living is regarded as indulgent, self-absorbed, weak.
The body has unlimited voices: dance, touch, “gut reaction”, even disease is often a great shout to the conscious mind that a crucial aspect of the being needs to be heard, acknowledged and addressed.
If we ask: how fully do we taste what we put in our mouths, how widely do we see, visually invite and accept; how deeply do we receive a touch, how fully engaged are we when we touch another, and how much breath do we allow to penetrate into our lungs and blood, the answers may offer an insight in to the relationship we have with our very existence here on the planet.
Massage is just one of the ways in which we can reconnect to our physical being. In the Rebalancing training we were trained equally in how to receive touch as we were in the techniques involved in the giving of a massage. How to prepare and be present; to offer ourselves to the experience. Rather than be a passive receptacle to someone else’s manoeuvres we learned to be alive and responsive; to invite a dialogue, which is only sometimes verbal.
In order to begin to heal the traumas inflicted on our bodies and psyches introducing a healthy, therapeutic touch and inviting a direct and honest response is needed. A touch that not only acknowledges the wounds but encourages a dialogue and assists the recipient in feeling the full spectrum of response; from the pain of the original wound to the rich pleasure that can be released through the entire body when the pain is freed.

In Pune, where I trained, all the courses and trainings were experiential, and every day began with Dynamic meditation at 6 am. Dynamic meditation is a cathartic breathing, sounding, pounding process that brings one to the point of sudden stillness. Many of Osho’s meditations involve unleashing accumulated noise and disturbances in the mind and emotions through intense movement, breathing and often sound, in order to “throw out” all that keeps us from our own sweet silence. By shaking up the crust of busyness and chatter that accumulates throughout the day we make space for stillness and watchfulness. As with many techniques, disciplines and practices tremendous effort is needed to bring one to the place where effort is not only not needed it is an impediment to transformation.
So, we need to shake ourselves up, because we have spent far too much time and energy repressing what we feel, superimposing some idea of how we should be on top of what we actually are, and deeming ourselves acceptable only if we comply to some external standard. So here’s the big risk I am suggesting… shake it up, stir it up, dance, sing, shout, breathe, rock and roll, look in a mirror, tell the truth, see what rises to the top… let it be whatever it is…
By intense exertion we invite the authentic to arise. We get out of the way, in effect, so that our ideas don’t interfere with reality. For most of us from early childhood our breath is constricted, becomes shallow. For many; dare I say most, there is tension even when sleeping, our hands clenched into fists.

What I have been working with/on/for most of my life is the body - through dance, active meditation, Reichian emotional body work, massage, lovemaking, birthing... everything - my lens has been focused on the body as teacher, as portal, as metaphor... through direct experience I learn the world.

I have observed one thing again and again - that people are terrified of the body; its mortality, its pain, even its pleasure. Because of the fear we stay trapped inside a very small world. And the body is our invitation to life, is it not? What better way to experience life than through the body which is our home, our vehicle, our gift from existence. Everywhere people are trying to tame, control, or ignore their bodies, and damn those bodies, they keep coming up with ways to complain, don't they??

What I have found is that when one moves - whether it is dance or running or yoga or making love, or jumping up and down - if it is done with total presence, the mind clears of its own and what lies in wait can surface - all that had been stuffed or ignored or dismissed bubbles to the surface... sometimes this is emotion, sometimes a brilliant idea... but not, I note, the stuff of logic... more outside of the box, as it were. But most are reluctant to give themselves over to anything totally... the ego will then be lost and the gap is too frightening, or they instinctively know that they will encounter a rage or grief that they have successfully held at bay... But by risking all of this we come into contact with ourselves in a more authentic way... We need to pay attention to what IS, not what we superimpose on the world as reality... We have to take the risk of finding out that our lens on the world may be coloured or obscured. We have to risk feeling pain. We have all known pain - from a burned finger to a broken heart, so it isn't that we cannot bear it, it's that we would rather avoid reopening our wounds. But the thing is: we have never truly and directly been present for life‘s plats du jour. We dodge and stuff down and react before the full weight of any given experience has landed upon us.
We are each our own planet - places that are scorched, frozen, airless and desolate, lush, barren; all of it - within our own shells, there it is. One way of knowing this directly is by moving. Moving the body and moving inward.
By exerting effort through movement the mind is engaged sufficiently to not interfere with what may be stirred up. If one directs their true focus; that dispassionate eye, upon the process and the experience of dance or shaking then all that has been tucked away has space to surface.
In this way movement of the body is a portal to consciousness, because the deeper the relationship with the body the more still is the mind - no static, as it were. The mind’s noise is quietened and one is brought into present time - into meditation in real time. It may sound simple, but like any spiritual disciplines it requires practice.

In the workshops I put out the invitation to experience being outside of the mind's ideas of what is and what was ... to stir the pot and explore what arises... Unless we venture in we stay trapped inside the fear of, not the knowledge of...

The last retreat intensive I organized and hosted with my colleague and friend, Esana, the first weekend of May was an exceptionally gratifying weekend full of self observation and discovery for everyone concerned.

In these workshops, participants were invited to explore many different expressions of being alive, including body/mind awareness through dance, sound and chakra meditations, hands-on introduction to heart-centred massage, emotional release exercises, and Kripalu Yoga.

The focus was on opening to deeper layers of responsiveness and feeling through the invitation to arrive in present time and place. Intense experiential self-exploration was balanced with meditation, sharing, relaxation and laughter. And great food provided with care by the wonderful hosts, Sharon and Jeremy, at The Sir William Mackenzie Inn.

I think one of the challenges I always face, as no doubt do many others who endeavour to offer such “hands-on” experiences, is how to impart the flavour and essence to those who have never participated in an experiential intensive. Because to list the events, meditations and exercises creates at best a two dimensional picture that is easily lost, especially since the sort of lexicon that most aptly describes the experiences has already become worn.

These days books like New Earth by Eckhardt Tolle have become very popular and more and more people are entering therapy to help clear the pathway of the past and arrive in present time with the ability to experience the here and now directly. The missing piece is practice; the practical application. Any shift or change in behaviour or awareness requires practice. Where do we practice? How do we practice?

Our busy minds and lives offer constant and ceaseless opportunity to not exist in present time; always stretching forward to pre-plan each moment right to our very deaths or rewinding to places of remorse or longing. So these groups offer a space out of time to be supported in an environment which is only interested in this very moment and one’s relationship to it.

This means that one is put into situations or encounters that very definitely bring up past experience and even trauma, and the guidance is to observe, acknowledge and then the invitation is to bring oneself into an unclouded fresh taste of whatever is being offered. It is a practical means to transforming pain into pleasure. Take, for instance, Esana’s guided “Conscious Eating” exercise. Here we waited hungrily for food to arrive for our lunch. We could naturally indulge our impatience and grow agitated and testy, or now we were offered the chance to turn toward the sensation of hunger and observe it with interest. The truth is, waiting a half an hour or even an hour for food is unlikely to have a dramatic impact on one’s health or well-being, but we behave out of habit in a manner that suggests we will perish or at the very least grow deathly ill, or be tremendously inconvenienced by the tardy arrival of our meal. Instead we could languish in an intense sensation in our bellies while at the same time observe the thoughts running amok in our brains. How fascinating! We then had the opportunity not only to greet food with a fresh palate, but to consider all the hands and the people belonging to those hands that were responsible for the food that lay before us. Approaching a piece of broccoli as if one has never had such a creature can be a stunning experience. Some later observed that they hated “cold food”. I realized that idea may well have been brought to the table and not set aside so that “cold food” could enter the mouth un-judged; to be nourished in a fresh and new fashion.

I am endeavouring both personally and through invitation to clear the vision’s lens of the cloud of past perception. If you consider a child’s perspective compared to an adult’s of the same event you will most often find a disparity in comprehension and response. And yet, we carry these perceptions of the world with us into adulthood, rarely questioning their veracity or effectiveness in negotiating our lives.

And so were other avenues explored with the same “beginner’s mind” suggestion. Participants explored an arm as if they had never before been introduced to an arm. What heaven! At every turn they were able to recognize an idea or thought or prejudice that had the power to keep them from having a direct experience. When they were able to distinguish those mindsets from the input they were receiving at that very moment, a beautiful thing happened.
I “begin with the body” because the body lives in the present, while carrying all the stories of the past, and the mind lives everywhere but the present. So the body’s experiences are the anchor to the present. I find it astounding how we can actually dance hard, dance wild, and still not be engaged. It requires, for most of us, a certain resolve to be attentive to our bodies.

It is gratifying to witness the unfurling of the tight muscles of the women’s faces as warm radiance emerges. I like to think sometimes that I am in the “restoration” business. That is both with the bodywork and with these group intensives where all I provide is a space for women to come back to a place inside where they feel authentic and whole.

How is this done? By offering simple exercises in which to sink ones full attention - dancing, breathing, eating, walking, chanting, yoga, massage. We slowed it right down, but kept an easy flow that gave support so that participants didn’t collapse. It is an all too-familiar pattern in life: go, go, go, collapse. Fast forward or unconscious. Generally, people in our culture work, play, and exercise with an intensity that invites exhaustion. Creating balance is very much a common challenge.

Most of us are adept at getting things done, striving, exerting, making an “effort”. How many of us can say we are good at relaxing and listening to our bodies; good at loving ourselves?

I am so grateful to be able to host these groups to give space and time in such lush surroundings to just breathe and be. Really. That, in the end, is the essence. That is what all the fuss is about. To practice breathing and being. In this amazing living thing called the body.

In the great scheme of things even the earth itself is microscopic, and so to think that what we “do” will make a huge impact on the universe is crazy silly. But seen in another way, the fact that we have bodies at all is simply a miracle - that life separated out and encapsulated in life forms that are distinct from one another is truly a remarkable thing… I see it as a rare and marvellous chance to find out what it is to have emotions, feelings, ideas, etc. that appear separate from all else. To explore a notion of individuality that may not be possible anywhere else in the universe. So I like to start from the very beginning: the container itself - and all it is capable of experiencing. To me it is a big, WOW…we can not only feel pain and joy and anger and delight, but we can feel hunger and aching and sorrow and loneliness and pride and shame and blame… and all sorts of shades in between these. To observe our own goings-on with interest and fascination takes away the suffering… we suffer because we condemn certain emotions and feelings and accept only some others. We cling to what we think we want and struggle with responses we don’t like. So here’s the opportunity to be all right with not liking and find even that an interesting state, and perhaps discovering that as you relax around your so-called negative feelings they just dissolve. If we let the feelings, emotions just move along of their own accord we may find that they rise and fall again just like everything else. “This too shall pass” applies to absolutely everything from emotions to feelings to situations to our very lives.

The healthiest response to our current catastrophic global situation, aside from helping those in need whenever we are able, is to live with awareness and attentiveness. With this as a foundation we are naturally going to be compassionate and more likely not to suffer fools gladly. As we become more awake we are able to see the folly and the utter goofiness of getting our “knickers in a twist “about so-called enemies. Which apparently includes just about everything and everyone - this fear based control is aimed at the basic fear of death. Once we accept that in fact we each one of us, as we know ourselves, will perish one day then everything gets a whole lot lighter and simpler. And perhaps we get a little braver.
But we start, because we have to start somewhere, with the body. It is the most immediate, closest vehicle in which to know the world and its workings. Befriending it, knowing it, being attentive to it, loving it even, for the gift that it is, warts and all, is the direction in which we need to point ourselves.
We need to learn to dance with our discomfort, our despair, our delight and our demons, fully engaged with not only our physical being but these emotional states. Because they are indications, signposts, a finger pointing both in and beyond. The body is right here right now. These workshops provide an opportunity to practise the art of living with alertness, presence, and consciousness.