I feel a little bit light-headed and dizzy, maybe my brain is re-wiring or was it the red wine I didn’t drink all week? It’s day seven of a seven-day silence retreat and we are about to come out of silence.
During the retreat I was going to write a fancy diary sharing my thoughts each day but it would have been a bit boring to read, pretty much sounding like this…
Day one: This is weird. What am I doing, why am I doing this?
Day two: I’m kinda really into this silence.
Day three: I frickin love this!
And so on.
You are probably wondering, was I even allowed to write? Well, I’m a naughty girl and allowed myself to write and paint. I had all these song lyrics pouring out of me and so I often just sat by the ocean alone with my little yellow songbook.
Even though I did write, I never spoke a single word (except for when I bashed my toes on a rock on the beach and ‘outch’ slipped out of my mouth).
One of the most precious moments during this week was a short interaction I had with the room cleaner. She was so respectful and since I couldn’t talk to her, I wrote a little note saying ‘thank you for being so wonderful’ with a twenty-dollar bill attached to it. When I gave it to her, she looked in my eyes, hugged me and burst into tears which of course made me cry too. We just stood there for a few seconds, both of us in tears of gratitude, not one single word spoken. This one interaction touched me deeply.
At the start of the retreat I wrote down some of my intentions for the week.
One of them was to go really deep into my mediations and the other one was to become enlightened. Don’t laugh! I didn’t even know what that meant myself, but I thought it sounded like a pretty good goal.
The whole experience was amazing. I absolutely loved the silence; I know, hard to believe. The only words I truly missed saying all week were ‘thank you’ when someone did something nice, I found it weird not to say anything, but tried to thank with my eyes instead (the critics are shaking their heads again here since we were probably not meant to have eye contact with anyone).
As time went on, I felt a lot calmer, less restless and not trying to fill the space. I was also aware of things I would normally just walk past, like a bird singing in a tree or a flower blossoming on the side of the road. Do I sound like a total hippy? Good!
This is certainly something I am keen to bring more into my life, not to constantly rush from one thing to the next but to just sit, be and observe. I do this to a certain extent already, especially when I’m in nature, but I think I can add more of these quiet moments into my daily life.
Back to my intentions; well, I had some pretty epic meditation experiences throughout the week! You probably already know how hard it is for me to sit on my butt for more than five second. Sometimes I even caught myself thinking how much longer is this meditation going to go? Pathetic really, I had nowhere to be or go! And then gradually it became easier and easier to sit still and let go of any resistance.
Sometimes I felt like I was one with the whole universe, sometimes I felt like my whole body was vibrating and I could almost feel it dissolve, sometimes I felt like I’m in a vortex.
Last night one of the teachers shared his thoughts on enlightenment, which made me very happy, since that was one of my other intentions. He explained that being enlightened means you are one with the universe, you feel spontaneous love, compassion, joy and passion, you are never offended, you don’t feel hostility, you are not scared of dying, your ego is in the background, you don’t need validation, you don’t take yourself too seriously and you radiate your being through your presence.
I’m sure there are different shades of enlightenment, but it doesn’t seem that hard to achieve!
I’m leaving this retreat with an even deeper sense of gratitude for all beings and nature in particular. I had a few very special moments with one of my big loves, the ocean.
I hope you enjoyed reading my thoughts. Remember, I’m not a guru, expect for my own. Call me a hippy.