I think I'm getting somewhere

The words above probably fall in the category of "famous last words", uttered moments before one gets lost in the woods.

I just returned from a silent, contemplative retreat led by Dr. James Finley and hosted by the San Damiano Retreat Center in Danville, California. I actually signed up for it, didn't change my mind about it, didn't cancel it, and didn't get sick. I was present for it, mind, body and spirit, and have returned restored and refreshed in all the parts of me mentioned above. I highly recommend both the center and the speaker.

I also bought more books, right after telling myself that I would stop buying books and just check them out from the library. Now the stacks are growing around me like mushrooms: books from the library as well as new books, perhaps forty at this point, that I want to read, but don't have time to.
Mushrooms.

Who knew Danville was so beautiful, and that the hills around it held a hidden treasure such as the San Damiano Retreat Center? The Franciscans seem to follow in the footsteps of St. Francis even when it comes the natural beauty in which they make their home, as I was lucky enough to discover when I went to Assisi two years ago.

At the retreat we, the retreatants, were silent from after dinner on Friday until lunch today. Silent when we walked around, silent at meals, silent in our rooms. All around us was silent as well. I thought I would have slept even more than I do at home, but instead I found myself awake before dawn and going for walks as soon as it was light out. Heavenly.

Now all I want to do is go live as a part-time hermit with my dogs, reading all my books (hey, maybe that's why I'm hoarding books), meditating, staring into space, going for walks, and coming down from the mountain only occasionally to meet with a few choice friends. And to shop at Ross.

I've got the books; all I need is the mountain.

I leave you with more images of the San Damiano Retreat Center. Click on any photo to enlarge it. 

OCD or Kundalini?

Sometimes I try to figure myself out, and other times I just let it go. This is one of those times when I am particularly curious about what motivates me. 

For the past year I've been having a great time making mixed media, taking online art classes having to do with collage, spray painting, stenciling and photography, thinking that this time I was going to stick with it, when all of a sudden, a little over a month ago, something reminded me of Fr. Thomas Keating, his books, a workshop of his that I attended in June of 2006, and how I had tried the method of centering prayer he teaches, but was unable to really get into it. As I recounted here, I went to the Contemplative Outreach website, where I found a link to a course that will be taught online by him and others through Sounds True. At the Sounds True site I found a treasure chest of podcasts with teachers from many different paths, and have been listening to them ever since. Not only that, but I have signed up for the online centering prayer course that starts in January, I've signed up for a retreat at the San Damiano Center in Danville with Dr. James Finley, also in January, attended the day-long Vipassana meditation retreat two weeks ago, then last Saturday a meditation and yoga class at Bernal Yoga with Saul David Raye in the morning and a Kirtan and Puja with him and others, including a Vedic priest, in the evening, where I ended up dancing like I did in my hippie days, and today I would be in a two day class entitled The Eight Limbs of Yoga with Mariana Caplan, if it weren't for the fact that I have a beastly cold and couldn't go. Hopefully I will be able to catch the second half tomorrow. 


Now for the OCD and Kundalini part. I just listened to the most recent Sounds True podcast interview with Dr. Lawrence Edwards. You'll have to read about him because there is no way to succinctly describe someone who is on the faculty of a medical college and who wrote his doctoral dissertation on the effects of Kundalini, an "energy" for which he offers a very intriguing description here. 


In any case, what he said during the podcast made me think that perhaps I can stop trying to figure out why I am on this wild goose chase, because rather than just being an example of my obsessive, sometimes driven, nature, it could very well be the sparks of the Kundalini energy awakening in me and propelling me on my search for a transformative spiritual path that will connect me to the divine in me and in all. So there you have it.