The biggest and most important event in my world took place last week with a retreat held near Duck, North Carolina. For those who are unfamiliar with the location of Duck it is not far from Kitty Hawk on the outer banks where the Wright Brothers made the first powered flight.
The home where we had the retreat is a beautiful three story many bedroomed mansion located 100 yards from the Atlantic Ocean. It is among many similar mansions stretching along the ocean for as far as the eye can see.
Two members of the KM (spiritual friends ) group that I belong to own the property and graciously every year invite all of us to retreat on the property for four days in October. It is the high point for my season to do this and I am grateful for the invitation. We all bring food , the more physically capable bring food and prepare the meals . I do not have the energy to prepared a large meal so they let me skip that part of the process. Everyone , I am sure is grateful , me for not having to overtax myself and they for not having to endure the results of my exertions.
I did make Brownies however, before I left carefully adding water and egg and oil to a prepackaged mix and baking it. Not much admittedly , but at least I could contribute.
The clarity of mind that come from these retreat is priceless, the sharing is very moving for me and the love and acceptance gives a meaning to being alive that I cherish deeply.
I do not wish to share specifics of all the things said at the retreat as I consider them confidential to the group but I will say that I watched the sharing move from prose to poetry , from ordinary to sublime , and from individualistic to congregational .
We watched the kirtan whali , (a devotee to the yoga of singing to God), Krishna Das's DVD biographical video one evening. Through the story and the kirtan I felt the presence of my guru Neem Karoli at the gathering and I continued to feel that presence for the whole retreat.
To prepare for the retreat I had been foregoing two treatments , one , a transfusion of blood. I wished to wait until the last viable moment so that I would have energy and vitality to make the trip and not have to sleep excessively when I was with my friends . The nurses were taking bets if I was to be sent immediately to emergency or if I could return by my own devices the day after the blood test.( It takes overnight to get the right blood from the blood bank.) My red blood count was less than half of normal, The doctor thought I could be on my own and I thought that I could also. I did and the next day I received a quart of O+ blood. The red blood cell count went up 80% and I returned to life.
A result obtained from the data on the blood test was that my PSA ,the marker for the virulence of the cancer, declined .
The other was to postpone my chemo for a week . That allowed me to travel and not have to deal with the intense reactions of diarrhea and constipation that usually accompanies the treatments.
I loved everything about the trip , from singing a capella with one of my fellow retreatants in the back seat during the trip to Duck. (Jesus is Just All Right with Me). To getting a chance to learn more fully about everyones lives , and generally sharing the bonhomie of the pilgrimage .
At the retreat during the meals we would laugh and discuss that which was of interest to us all. One of the days I had a healing at a lunch that was quite revealing . I easily become dehydrated and the effects are painful. The day after I arrived I was feeling the adverse effects of not having sufficient fluids in my system. I took an Advill and drank much fluid but to little effect. At lunch I joined in while I was hurting and in due course of sharing in the laughter and conviviality the pain disappeared. No doubt there is a decent rational explanation for this, but I prefer to think of it as a small miracle. It certainly felt that way.
Of concern to all of us there was the threat of the rising of ocean levels. There was a book there that chronicled what was thought to be the inevitability of said event.
This caused concern to the owners of the property primarily, but to all of us generally. Since none of us are experts on the subject it comes as a concern to have to determine what actions are necessary and viable , and also how to evaluate the data presented .
It lead me to draw upon my experience to come up with a manner to separate the information , emotions and facts into their components and then to reintegrate the information in a rational manner.
I drew upon my basic understanding of science and law, both of which attempt to use logic to answer questions , to determine truth, It was a very helpful exercise and to do it in the setting where I was located plus an email discussion with an old friend about global warming helped me to come to form my conclusions about how to evaluate all that I hear and see about the subject.
I may share those insights at a later date , but my point here is that the environment of the retreat allowed a more trenchant and incisive understanding that I had not previously perceived .
One of the great moments on the spiritual path is the moment of awakening labeled Satori (Japanese), Samadhi (Sanskrit) ,or Epiphany (Western). The moment is the flash of insight that takes previous known material and rearranges that knowledge into a completely new way allowing for insight and wisdom to emerge into consciousness. These insights follow a degree of profundity from the superficial ,such suddenly recognizing where you are while driving in a strange community , to the more profound understanding of how a system works ,such as my understanding of the way to organize logical thinking around a subject that is of concern to me and a large portion of the population . To the deep personal spiritual revelation that comes either evolutionarily as the West and Hindu often do, as enunciated by one of my friends at the retreat who claimed that it was the first time that he had understood the poems of the mystic poet Rumi ,to the sharp and stunning moments of the clarity of Zen, chronicled by mystics and seekers in a large body of literature on the subject.
They are all spiritual, or not , depending on the viewpoint of the perceiver . My path is learning that being ordinary is the essence of being spiritual.
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