Spring Retreat Collage by Suzy

the collage above was done at our Spring Retreat at H-OM yoga studio in April 2009 by Suzy, one of our participants.

She is a photographer, and she added the words in digitally after the fact.

Gorgeous artistic reminder of our need for self-care and kindness.

musemother

October by Mary Oliver

There's this shape, black as the entrance to a cave.
A longing wells up in its throat
like a blossom
as it breathes slowly.

What does the world
mean to you if you can't trust it
to go on shining when you're

not there? and there's
a tree, long-fallen; once
the bees flew to it, like a procession
of messengers, and filled it
with honey.

2
I said to the chickadee, singing his heart out in the
green pine tree:

little dazzler
little song,
little mouthful.
3

The shape climbs up out of the curled grass. It
grunts into view. There is no measure
for the confidence at the bottom of its eyes--
there is no telling
the suppleness of its shoulders as it turns
and yawns.
Near the fallen tree
something--a leaf snapped loose
from the branch and fluttering down--tries to pull me
into its trap of attention.

4
It pulls me
into its trap of attention.

And when I turn again, the bear is gone.

5
Look, has'nt my body already felt
like the body of a flower?

6
Look, I want to love this world
as thought it's the last chance I'm ever going to get
to be alive
and know it.

7
Sometimes in late summer I won't touch anytthing, not
the flowers, not the blackberries
brimming in the thickets; I won't drink
from the pond; I won't name the birds or the trees;
I won't whisper my own name.

One morning
the fox came down the hill, glittering and confident,
and didn't see me--and I thought:

so this is the world.
I'm not in it.
It is beautiful.

Song for Autumn

http://www.flickr.com/photos/treantaso/2072229303/ (photo credits)

By Mary Oliver

In the deep fall
don’t you imagine the leaves think how
comfortable it will be to touch
the earth instead of the
nothingness of air and the endless
freshets of wind? And don’t you think
the trees themselves, especially those with mossy,
warm caves, begin to think
of the birds that will come — six, a dozen — to sleep
inside their bodies? And don’t you hear
the goldenrod whispering goodbye,
the everlasting being crowned with the first
tuffets of snow? The pond
vanishes, and the white field over which
the fox runs so quickly brings out
its blue shadows. And the wind pumps its
bellows. And at evening especially,
the piled firewood shifts a little,
longing to be on its way.

found at http://ethershopf06.umwblogs.org/

The Holy Longing poem

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Tell a wise person, or else keep silent.
Because the massman will mock it right away.
I praise what is truly alive,
what longs to be burned to death.

In the calm water of the love-nights,
where you were begotten, where you have begotten,
a strange feeling comes over you
when you see the silent candle burning.

Now you are no longer caught
in the obsession with darkness,
and a desire for higher lovemaking
sweeps you upward.

Distance does no tmake you falter,
now, arriving in magic, flying,
and finally, insane for the light,
you are the butterfly and you are gone.

And so long as you haven't experienced
this: to die and so to grow,
you are only a troubled guest
on the dark earth.

Healing Retreats that only take a minute

We all need to feel healed, whole. But there are times in our lives when we feel this need more strongly. Here are some Signs that you need a healing retreat, found in the book 20-Minute Retreats by Rachel Harris:

1. You suffer from chronic symptoms such as headache, upset stomach, musculoskeletal aches and pains, with no clear medical diagnosis.
2. You don't feel rested and refreshed upon awakening.
3. Your sleep is disturbed
4. You find you have more cirtical or negative things to say than constructive and positive comments
5. The energy in and around your body feels imbalanced, jagged, edgy.
6. You feel too vulnerable, easily hurt or weak.
7. You're overreacting to daily stress with impatience, frustration, annoyance or irritation.
8. You're at a crisis or major transition in your life and you need to reconsider your life direction, values and calling.
9. It's your fiftieth birthday.
10. You have just suffered a major loss.
11. Your medical doctor has given you a serious helath warning or medical diagnosis.
12. You have some uncomfortable relationships in your past or current life that you would like to heal.

She goes on to outline several 1- 5 minute retreats one can do for healing. Here is one of them:

One-minute retreat-Gathering Bamboo (good for relieving headaches, soothing tiredness, clearing your vision)

Sit with your head hanging forward slightly as if you were looking down at your lap. Place your thumbs in the corners of your eye sockets under the inner point of your eyebrows. You should feel a ledge there where your thumbs seem to fit perfectly. Allow your thumbs to support the weight of your head for a full minute.

This is a polarity therapy technique.

Sweet Darkness

When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.

When your vision has gone
no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.

There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.

The dark will be
your womb tonight.

The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.

You must learn one thing.
The world was made to be free in.

Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness to learn

anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

~David Whyte

Coming Home to myself

extract


The Self
pushes the neglected forward
for recognition.
Do not disregard it.
it holds energy
of highest value.
it is the gold in the dung.
do not disregard the dung.

Marion Woodman,Jill Mellick