Coming Home: 4-day Silent Retreat
In an island sanctuary devoted to contemplative silence, with magnificent views of mountains, forests and seas, we come together for restoration and reintegration into who we truly are beyond the divisions that separate us from our True Nature.
Shared Yearnings: Cross-fertilizing Non-Dual Practices
A silent non-dual meditation retreat offered by two old friends and long-time meditation practitioners. Both raised Catholic, they are now strongly influenced by Kashmir Shaivism, yoga, Zen, artistic pursuit, and natural sciences. The retreat will combine classical practices: sitting, walking, breath and body sensing, talks, guided inquiries and dialogues with outdoor practice, chant, movement and poetry.
Settling Into Stillness: 4-day Silent, Non-dual Retreat
We share intimate silence to unplug, practice and simply be. The retreat offers guided walks through the desert; gatherings in community for quiet sitting, walking meditation, body and breath sensing, chant, yoga nidra, and inquiry dyads; plus, ample free time for contemplation, rest, individual study and integration in the calm stillness of the Sonoran Desert.
yoga nidra: the dance
We navigate between addressing the realities of being human – the experience of our bodies, thoughts and emotions – and recognizing the transience of this existence. Our practice is one of keeping a foot in both worlds; exploring disidentification without bypassing the human experience in favour of transcendence.
yoga nidra: the inner landscape
A quiet practice during which we become acquainted with the parade of roles, identities and beliefs we hold to be true about ourselves. By gently feeling into the question, “Who am I?,” the transient nature of the story of me may reveal itself, releasing us to rest in pure Am-ness.
yoga nidra: the basics
A light-hearted and simple practice during which we settle in, establish a safe foundation for inquiry, create space for all the “matters” that are present, and then rest back and enjoy the ride.
guided meditation: listening
The practice slowly guides us from an alternation between listening to the particularities of the soundscape and attending to discrete body sensations, to pure, objectless listening.
yoga nidra: the thread
A short practice (22 min) during which we fully immerse ourselves in whatever is arising from moment to moment, feeling the thread of unchangingness woven through it all.
yoga nidra: and this too
This practice followed a conversation during which a number of participants shared their feelings of grief at the loss of loved ones. (Some poetic license was used in the recounting of the story from the Bhagavad Gita.)
yoga nidra: being aware
Being aware is not a doing. When there is nothing to reject and nothing to cling to, nothing to fix and nothing to change, then there is nothing to do but simply rest as multidimensional awareness in which all sensations arise and subside.