Re-entry

     How do you hold on to a peak experience after the moment has passed?  An experience where you have participated in something that is greater than yourself, something that changes you on a cellular level?  As tourists, we buy postcards and souvenirs to remind us of our experience, we take snapshots to show our family and friends, but unless the experience is shared, it is difficult for someone who was not there to have a sense, or the ability to taste your experience.  Re-entry back into everyday life is challenging after a vacation, and even more so after a spiritual retreat.  Our body's energy channels, the mind, senses and heart have been blasted open- we are more sensitive and receptive to all forms outside stimulus- TV, phones, loudspeakers, computers.  The world can be a very jarring place- the airport that was once an exciting portal into the anticipated adventure becomes a harsh and overwhelming environment.  For me, the flight home is the most difficult part, the loud voices, crying babies, announcements from the flight deck, the bagpipe music coming from the row in front of me (I’m not joking).  The irate traveler swearing at another person in front of his children (yeah, same guy I mentioned in the last post), the inconsiderate jostling for position before the airplane doors are even open, the hit of light and sound and bustling activity that disorients you upon entry into the terminal.  How do we maintain the peace that we found for ourselves while on retreat?

      Cultivate the intention to view everything as perfect exactly the way it is.  The cacophony of the airport provides contrast for the quiet peace of mind that was granted to us during our time away.  We must remember that the retreat, the vacation is simply a moment, a pause that we take to step out of the flow of our daily lives, and is not the reality of our everyday life.  Without contrast, we would miss the experience. If we lived in that alternate vacationland bliss all the time, without contrast it would lack meaning.  Try to step back into the peace you found while you were away- remember how it felt in your body.  There is a super intelligence there that you can tap into at anytime, to remember that place of ease and equipoise, that flash of awareness, the touch of beauty on your senses.  It is always available for us when we open to the remembrance of the feeling.  Choosing what you focus your awareness on while you are traveling makes it possible to carry the experience back into your daily life- the grandfather cuddling his granddaughter, the long kiss and poignant parting of young lovers, the kind and selfless act of a complete stranger. 

Beauty and spiritual inspiration come in many forms, and are present for us all the time- we don’t have to go on retreat to find them, we just have to see the world with new eyes.