Reflector Retreat
During and after 6 days of reclusion with 14 other reflectors at the 2010 Reflector Retreat, I have written several remarks, which are quoted here, in random order.
I want to ask/suggest to read/contemplate each sentence as a single one, not as a continuous story.
Day1: how can you shut your mind if you cannot shut your mouth
coming together with all these reflectors, lifts up (y)our being, (y)our spirit, without feeling any pressure or tension, and actually not feeling their presence at all. Almost like a contradiction, but without doing anything other than being (there), we are not there
a reflector is not there, is not in the room with you, but at the same time, their empty vessels clear the room and all beings in it from their troubles and sorrows somewhat. If the reflector is empty and has no (other) agenda than being.
Day2: I feel energized but not in a motorized way
When reflectors come together, REALLY come together, there are no hello’s nor goodbyes, they just continue living as one, in seperate togetherness, and when they leave they continue to do so in the same seperate togetherness, over vast distances even. (someone compared us as interconnected mushrooms, individually sticking out of the ground, but woven together beneath it)
Day3: was in a room filled with other people, but there was nobody else with me. I questioned if even I myself was
15 reflectors in a room, and there is no-one there, but feeling energized in a non-motorized way. The body can grow tired but the me/being inside this body could not get enough of the beautifull silence, the presence of none, the sudden felt lack of pressure or tension, and the comfort in which I suddenly found myself without knowing if I alone or we all together carried it.
We are not to be told anything by anyone, not even by other reflectors. My own inner process will guide me
The ease at which we come into silence, from one giggling, talking, dancing moment to the next where we breathe deeply and feel comfortably nourisched by a deep inner and outer silence and smile with just simply being
Day4: become an empty vessel, like the open centres we are, with the hanging gates as the individual antenae. Reaching for the cosmos, and passing our being on towards (the ) other
and then just be, without a word, without a sound
At a large table where several conversation emerged, no-one spoke louder than another, and all conversations could continue all the time, this happened many times over during these 5 days
Playing guitar and singing with some reflectors became so sweetly intense at times, so beyond ourselves, that I lost track of the song many times while playing it
My life is (again) changed, but without changing(/doing) anything actually, just living life differently
Day5: I can feel my neighbours presence now.
And as Nisarg wrote me later: “you’re still a bit not here”.
Acknowledgement: some things are a quote from the workshop itself, like the part about the antenae was given to us by Nisarg