Practicing Presence: The New Year's Yoga Retreat

This New Year's Yoga Retreat at Doe Bay was my 7th year leading this wonderful retreat. At this point, most attendees have been in past years because folks just keep coming back. The nourishment we create through practice, community, yoga and food during this weekend is unparalleled and I love coming back again and again as a touchstone to the start of each my new years. This year, with the snow moving through the San Juan islands day before, we practiced a great deal of non-attachment as the weekend approached, debating whether the retreat would go forward. Luckily, the weather behaved and the roads were cleared and we came together again for 3 days of reflection, insight and connection. Our focus this weekend was being present. So often the new year holds plans for the coming year or reflection on the past but it felt potent to simply sit with what is, moment to moment and that was our practice for the weekend. Below you'll find quotes and poems that were part of the weekend. I hope they inspire!

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Life is a Journey 
Birth is a beginning 
And death a destination 
And life is a journey: 
From childhood to maturity 
And youth to age; 
From innocence to awareness 
And ignorance to knowing; 
From foolishness to discretion 
And then perhaps to wisdom. 
From weakness to strength or 
From strength to weakness 
And often back again; 
From health to sickness, 
And we pray to health again. 
From offence to forgiveness, 
From loneliness to love, 
From joy to gratitude, 
From pain to compassion, 
From grief to understanding, 
From fear to faith. 
From defeat to defeat to defeat 
Until, not looking backwards or ahead, 
We see that victory lies not 
At some high point along the way 
But in having made the journey 
Step by step, 
A sacred pilgrimage. 
Birth is a beginning 
And death a destination 
And life is a journey. 
― Rabbi Alvin Fine

“At a certain point, you say to the woods, to the sea, to the mountains, the world, Now I am ready. Now I will stop and be wholly attentive. You empty yourself and wait, listening. After a time you hear it: there is nothing there. There is nothing but those things only, those created objects, discrete, growing or holding, or swaying, being rained on or raining, held, flooding or ebbing, standing, or spread. You feel the world's word as a tension, a hum, a single chorused note everywhere the same. This is it: this hum is the silence. Nature does utter a peep - just this one. The birds and insects, the meadows and swamps and rivers and stones and mountains and clouds: they all do it; they all don't do it. There is a vibrancy to the silence, a suppression, as if someone were gagging the world. But you wait, you give your life's length to listening, and nothing happens. The ice rolls up, the ice rolls back, and still that single note obtains. The tension, or lack of it, is intolerable. The silence is not actually suppression: instead, it is all there is.”
― Annie Dillard

We are the earth.

     Earth is the stardust-come-to-life, a magic cauldron where the heart of the universe is being formed. In me, the Earth and its creatures find their voices. Through my eyes the starts look back on themselves in wonder. I am the earth. This is my body.

We are the air.

    Air is the breath of the Earth, the movement of life, the quick, violent storm, and the slow, caressing breeze. In my breathing, life is receive and given back. My breath unites me to all things, to the creatures that make the oxygen, and to the people that share the same breath: yesterday a victim of AIDS; today a solider in the Middle East; tomorrow, a poor woman in the Third World. I am air. This is my breath.

We are fire.

     Fire is the energy of the universe, the source of power and new life. In my thoughts burn the fires of the original eruption of life; in my emotions, lightening flashes; in my love, new life is conceived. I participate in power. I share in the energy fo the universe, to keep warm, to fuel my body, to create my relationships. I am fire. This is my power.

We are water.

     Water is the women of the Earth, from which all life is born. The open flows through the Earth, bringing abundance; the oceans flow through me, carrying food, recycling waster, expressing emotions. I am water. This is my life.
― Dangel Martin
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Willingness
In the willingness to feel, there is healing.
In the choice not to closet, cast aside of deny experience,
energy is freed, and I dive deeper into life.

There may be maturity in choosing not to act,
but there are no rewards for suppression and denial.

To fully alive is saying yes to the wide array of human feelings.

When I soften, release and breathe,
I discover that I am more than
what I think, feel, reason or believe.
― Danna Faulds

Point of Radiance
Find the point of radiance
in your heart. Whether
that be passion, pleasure,
or pain so deep it’s etched 
in blood, follow where
your true heart leads.
When it seems there is no 
light, look carefully,
for it is always there,
that ember of the God-force.
It may be hidden in a dim
corner or buried beneath
a pile of regrets, but it’s 
there nonetheless, that
spark of divine essence,
illuminating your next step.
― Danna Faulds

"It's ironic that to find the courage to lead an authentic life, you will have to go into the dark rooms of your most inauthentic self. You have to confront the very parts of yourself that you fear most to find what you have been looking for, because the mechanism that drives you to conceal your darkness is the same mechanism that has you hide your light. What you've been hiding from can actually give you what you've been trying hard to achieve." 
― Debbie Ford