Jaya writes about April's Deep Rest retreat in Catalonia, Spain.
Every day rain.
The first retreat where each teacher was also mothering a child--Gyan now over 3 years old, and Gayatri just over 4 months.
The dining room not ready for dinner. Someone keeps turning off the heating system.
Lots of people new to silence and retreat.
Within the 4 days of the retreat, a historic 2 soccer games between rivals Barcelona and Madrid, plus 2 major holidays--when people usually want to be with a television and with people they know.
Turning 44.
Ice-cold water in the showers on the last morning.
Sounds challenging, to say the least.
But it was one of the more wonderful retreats I have been on in 25 years of meditating.
Silence, deep and refreshing, in the hall from the first evening; breakthrough meditations several times a day; chi gong and embodied anatomy in the mornings; people immersed in the atmosphere of fluidity and love; Gemma's mom made up enough games and read enough books to get through 4 grey days; ease; ease amidst the unexpected; a ribbon of softness; a treasure found; we said, "Love the process; Let things float in softness; Put what is central to life in the center of your life."
They said, "Just arriving here, I felt my armor melting as if by magic."
They said, "Somehow all that meditation helped me find a way to sit without pain."
They said, "Somehow the atmosphere made it easy to go into the fluidity and bring love even to difficult situations." They said, "Passion for awakening."
They said, "I loved the rain."