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Soaking in the hot springs of Breitenbush in the late summer, I was still. In the water’s stillness, I observed Queen Anne’s Lace, the plant, preparing for winter. I felt connected to time’s sacred dimensions in the natural world. I saw how endings move towards beginnings. I wrote:
Once green, coarse brown stems curl their treasured cloud petals inward. Slowly pulled inside, the density of time changes their form. In time’s molasses, they become caterpillar-like; feet cold and quivering. They are sheltered for winter. They are suspended: the moment before the bow’s arrow is released. They won’t be released. It’s their burial. It’s their beginning.
I went to Breitenbush to forget my perpetual “to-do” list and rest. “Who am I when I’m not doing?” I wondered. I wanted to draw inward and connect with what is inside of me. I see a similar longing in those who come to me for care. It emerges again and again. There is a desire to forget our habituated self in order to return to our innate self, which is wondrous and imaginative and interconnected with the natural world.
When surrendering to stillness, our body sighs out, it rests. It begins to repair and restore. It becomes quiet and spacious. A fuzzy softness, a dim warm light, emerges and glows. We begin to observe and receive; we listen to what we don’t know. In stillness we feel our own mystery, a place inside that is unknown and undefined, a place to bring somethingness from nothingness. It brings us closer to feeling how we belong and the illuminated potential we hold.
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Retreat: An Invitation into Winter’s Stillness
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To connect within, I invite you to participate in Winter’s Stillness on Saturday, January 21st at Dayaalu Center. There we will reflect on:
What is our body asking for?
What do we want to pull inward?
What needs to be buried?
What needs to be held sacred?
What would we like to cultivate?
What would we like to express?
On the new moon, the cusp of the Chinese Lunar New Year, I will guide us through acts of inaction to feel the spaciousness of stillness and receive its care. We will still through fives aspects of a life cycle which resonate with 五行 Wǔ Xíng, the Five Phases in Chinese medicine. These phases express the constancy of change seen in the natural world which resides in our bodies. Essential to life’s renewal is the constant flow from start to finish, beginning to end, with growth, flowering, and transformation between. Winter’s Stillness is a ritual of renewal, to connect with our mystery and listen to what we want to bury and draw near, hold sacred, cultivate, express, and transform.
To slough off what we want to bury, we will dry brush our skin. Drawing near and holding ourselves sacred, we will soak our feet, sit in an infrared sauna, and receive moxabustion (mugwort therapy) and acupuncture. Expanding upward, we will breathe through a channel meditation. Feeling the expression of our heart’s brilliance, we will listen to our pulse. Transforming our reflections, we will journal and then place our intentions on a floating lantern. Feeding our center, we will eat home-cooked food, and nap.
Winter embodies stillness. Constricted by cold, the earth becomes still; we become still. From stillness emerges spaciousness, which brings us closer to what we care for. It brings us closer to what warms us inside to hold that warmth aglow. We connect with what is unknown and mysterious inside us and its electric potential. It gives us the space to renew, to turn over. In stillness the cold earth turns over and moans, and so do we.
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Registration for Winter’s Stillness
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Winter’s Stillness is a ritual of renewal to draw inward and listen to what we want to bury, hold sacred, cultivate, express, and transform. I will guide you inward through meditation, moxibustion and acupuncture, warming practices, and reflection. These acts of inaction will connect us with our own mystery and our illuminated potential.
- When: January 21, 2023
- Where: Dayaalu Center, Bainbridge Island
- Time: 10:30 am - 5:30pm
- Fee: $275 *Includes Sauna Use + Catered Food ($65 Value)
- Participant limit: 12 people
- Food: Soup, salad, snacks, and tea catered by Dayaalu Center.
To Register: LINK
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Additional Offering
If you are interested in this retreat but unable to attend, please contact me to talk about setting up a private ritual that embodies this experience at peonymedicine@gmail.com.
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