A Poem for your New Year

This morning on my walk with Willow I came across many beautiful things. This photo captured a fraction of the beauty of the frost today. It reminded me of this poem and I offer it here to you with much love...


Take my hand.
We will walk.
We will only walk.
We will enjoy our walk
without thinking of arriving anywhere.
Walk peacefully.
Walk happily.
Our walk is a peace walk.
Our walk is a happiness walk.

Then we learn
that there is no peace walk;
that peace is the walk;
that there is no happiness walk;
that happiness is the walk.
We walk for ourselves.
We walk for everyone
always hand in hand.

Walk and touch peace every moment.
Walk and touch happiness every moment.
Each step brings a fresh breeze.
Each step makes a flower bloom under our feet.
Kiss the Earth with your feet.
Print on Earth your love and happiness.

Earth will be safe
when we feel in us enough safety.

Call Me By My True Names: The Collected Poems of Thich Nhat Hanh



I believe happiness never leaves us, even if sometimes we forget it's there. So, my wish for you all is that you remember just how happy you are, as many times as your heart beats, forever. :o)


hen
xx

Solitary Retreat - Preparations

This next few days I am preparing for my 2 week solitary retreat.

My preparations for the retreat are as follows:

1) Slowly increase my practice to 2 hours a day. A mix of sitting meditation, walking meditation, mindfulness in everyday tasks. This should help prevent my mind from going into shock at my meditation schedule next week!

2) Talking only when necessary. This helps to instill calmness and helps me to control my flitting mind by giving me more space to be mindful of what I say. I will be starting this in ernest tomorrow.

3) Move more gently and with awareness. Again, this will help to make me feel generally calmer.

4) Food preparations. I don't want to have to think too much about what I am going to eat everyday. So I am planning now what I will have. There'll be no popping out to the shops for two weeks, so I want to make sure that the important stuff is not forgotton!

4) Study material. Books and other writings.

5) Retreat book. I have a note book that I take with me on all my retreats and keep a sort of diary. It is an eye opener!

6) Bedding

7) Outdoor gear - hillwalking will be a part of this retreat.

8) Bivvy gear - I may want to go out into the hills and bivvy a night or two.

9) Spinning gear. I have decided one of my mindfulness practices is going to be handspinning. So I'll be taking some slivers and a wheel. I might decide not to take these though come friday.

10) Carving tools

11) Art things

12) Elm Dance. I will do the Elm Dance everyday morning and evening as my opening and closing ritual. It is a powerful dance that will help to connect me to the Great Turning movement across the world and ground me in my practice, help me to remember why I am doing this retreat. Which is another post entirely!


So, you see, I am going to have plenty to be occupied with. A solitary retreat is what you want it to be. Mindfulness and meditation is the main core practice of this retreat and creativity and nature is the theme. We'll see what happens after a few days though!


hen
xxx

Solitary Retreat and Mindfulness

At the end of next week I'll be going off for a 2 week solitary retreat. It'll be in a very remote place and I am really looking forward to it. I have decided that I am going to blog about parts of this retreat.

Going on retreat, for me, is very important. It's like an electric jolt to the spiritual system. Which is a terrible analogy, but it's late! I'll be going on the retreat without a time table or plan, as open minded as possible. It'll be good to see what emerges. There will be a simple format of meditation throughout the day, but nothing too taxing initially. I will be taking one rule with me...

be kind to my mind or it'll run away!

There is one thing that has been lolling about in my mind the past few weeks, Mindfulness. So mindfulness might become a theme of the retreat, who knows.

Mindfulness is the practice of being aware in everyday actions and reactions. It's not that easy for me, but I suppose that's why it's a practice.

The word 'practice' is my key word. Just like everything that I want to do in life, I have to practice in order to get good at any of it.

Day to day practice is hard though. Happily I've managed to stop beating myself up for not meditating every day or not doing lots of nice things for the world. It was just stopping me meditating and doing nice things for the world. So, I'm a bit kinder to myself and it seems to be doing the trick.

The solitary retreat may help me to strip away a few more of the trillion things that weigh down Hen and let me have a good old shake and come away a bit refreshed.

... Or I might go mad.


To be perfectly honest, I'm apprehensive about going, as well as excited!

;o)

hen
xxx

The Shambhala Warrior - Mind-Training

· Firmly establish your intention to live your life for the healing of the world. Be conscious of it, honour it, nurture it every day.

· Be fully present in our time. Find the courage to breathe in the suffering of the world. Allow peace and healing to breathe out through you in return.

· Do not meet power on its own terms. See through to its real nature - mind and heart made. Lead your response from that level.

· Simplify. Clear away the dead wood in your life. Look for the heartwood and give it the first call on your time, the best of your energy.

· Put down the leaden burden of saving the world alone. Join with others of like mind. Align yourself with the forces of resolution.

· Hold in a single vision, in the same thought, the transformation of yourself and the transformation of the world. Live your life around that edge, always keeping it in sight.

· As a bird flies on two wings, balance outer activity with inner sustenance.

· Following your heart, realise your gifts. Cultivate them with diligence to offer knowledge and skill to the world.

· Train in non-violence of body, speech and mind. With great patience to yourself, learn to make beautiful each action, word and thought.

· In the crucible of meditation, bring forth day by day into your own heart the treasury of compassion, wisdom and courage for which the world longs.

· Sit with hatred until you feel the fear beneath it. Sit with fear until you feel the compassion beneath that.Do not set your heart on particular results. Enjoy positive action for its own sake and rest confident that it will bear fruit.

· When you see violence, greed and narrow-mindedness in the fullness of its power, walk straight into the heart of it, remaining open to the sky and in touch with the earth.

· Staying open, staying grounded, remember that you are the inheritor of the strengths of thousands of generations of life.

· Staying open, staying grounded, recall that the thankful prayers of future generations are silently with you.

· Staying open, staying grounded, be confident in the magic and power that arise when people come together in a great cause.

· Staying open, staying grounded, know that the deep forces of Nature will emerge to the aid of those who defend the Earth.

· Staying open, staying grounded, have faith that the higher forces of wisdom and compassion will manifest through our actions for the healing of the world.

· When you see weapons of hate, disarm them with love.When you see armies of greed, meet them in the spirit of sharing.When you see fortresses of narrow-mindedness, breach them with truth.When you find yourself enshrouded in dark clouds of dread, dispel them with fearlessness.When forces of power seek to isolate us from each other, reach out with joy.

· In it all and through it all, holding to your intention, let go into the music of life. Dance!

by John Wigham / Akuppa