“The blossomiest blossom”- seeing things as they are!
This week, we hosted the first of our four Modern Meditation (MMb) and yoga based seasonal day retreats at Ananda Barn in Somerset.?
The session focused on Spring Equinox which for the UK was 9.24pm Monday 20th March (the other three are Summer Solstice, Autumn Equinox and Winter Solstice. Each session is bespoke and limited to only 8 participants. You can book onto the next ones here:
All of these retreats are designed to help reconnect and align with the rhythms of the natural world and our own natural state of being. This is achieved by connecting deeply with ourselves and the world around us using special guided Modern Meditation practices along with yogic breathing, visualisation, self-reflection journaling and creative conscious action.?
The Spring Equinox retreat was divided into two parts with the first part focusing on stillness, balance and harmony, with the second on potential, renewal and intention. The first involved deep guided meditation, while the second used reflective journaling, creative flow and nidra based intention setting. Diving deep into stillness, flow, insight and joy as everyone powerfully reflected on their needs and aspirations for the year.?
The key for any Spring Equinox session is to align with the changing world, and in particular the intelligent force of consciousness that underpins and fuels it.?
The amazing phrase - ‘blossomiest blossom’ comes from Dennis Potter’s famous BBC interview weeks before his death, talking about the view of a tree from his writing desk:
“I see it is the whitest, frothiest, blossomiest blossom that there ever could be, and I can see it. Things are both more trivial than they ever were, and more important than they ever were, and the difference between the trivial and the important doesn't seem to matter. But the nowness of everything is absolutely wondrous.”
It's the last line that catches you, and how being totally present to things as they are reveals a new reality of the world. Potter tells us what the world is actually like (particularly at Spring) if only we chose to see it. It seems there is so much joy we miss right in the heart of everything if only we decided to actually look and see things as they really are.
We explored this on our Spring Equinox retreat in one of our creative exercises. We led a walking meditation along the River Somer which runs close to Ananda Barn. The task was to walk as a conscious action for a fixed number of paces, then stop and record exactly what is experienced as raw information without any expectation, expansion or interference. This is done four times until one is left with four lines of prose shaped by direct exposure to the wondrous now. What results is a poem (although even that is not the right word) which has the space and light of Addlestrope or Rooms by the Sea.?
Here are some examples from the day from Roxane:
"The dark angel in its nest,
folds its wings and lays to rest.
The old wood stood as it's always been,
laced with specks of muted green.
A passage across the river,
joins the two banks above the water.
The bald, blue-masked King,
shouts out and shows its wheel."
And from Kate:
“A mottled wall having discrete patches of colour & texture,?
dark to light, rough to smooth.
Babbling, bubbling, tumbling water. Audibly constant, but not….
The resilient motion of a branch laden with deep green leaves?
becoming unburdened as the bird leaves it and flys away.
A pristine stone wall of warm hues, contrasting with severe black lines of an aesthetically geometrical metal lantern”.
A central practice of Modern Meditation is a shift or perspective allied with raised perception. Meditation is often referred to as the yoga of perception, and so is closely linked to creativity and insight, which is why so many designers and artists often talk about their work as a creative flow, seemingly arising from somewhere else.?
The point is to tap into this deep connection, which is, for a moment, revealed through meditation based awareness. It’s a state of connection which is present only when one finds out how to upgrade awareness into simply being aware. Fall into this space of stillness, and as Krishnamurti told us, we see and experience the source of all action which is exactly what Potter witnessed.?
“And In That State Of Communion—If You Inquire More Deeply—You Will Find That You Are Not Only In Communion With Nature, With The World, With Everything About You, But Also In Communion With Yourself.?
To Be In Communion With Yourself Means Complete Silence So That The Mind Can Be Silently In Communion With Itself About Everything. And From There, There Is Total Action. It Is Only Out Of Emptiness That There Is An Action That Is Total And Creative.”
Krishnamurti
So if you feel that somewhere along the line you have become disconnected and separated from the world, nature, others and most importantly yourself join us for the Summer Solstice Day Retreat at least. All the seasonal MMb retreats are designed to help you create a space firstly of stillness then intention, by tapping into the source energy that flows through everything all of the time - it is only out of emptiness that there is action and that action is total and creative.?
Our next three Seasonal Day Retreats are:
Summer Solstice – 17 June 2023 – Just 5 places left
Autumn Equinox – 23 September 2023 – Just 5 places left
Winter Solstice – 16 December 2023 – Just 5 places left
See you on the inside.