ReturningsReturn again, return again, return to the land of your soul. Return to who you are. Return to what you are. Return to how you are born and reborn again. Return again, return again, return to the land of your soul.
— Sufi song
Do you ever feel like you’ve lost touch with yourself in some way? Ever find yourself going through the motions, even all the “nice” motions, but sort of operating on automatic? Do you sense that you are mostly being or doing what others want or expect from you? Do you ever wish you could just put it all down and walk away…or simply rest or sleep (for a long time) without guilt and no agenda to get up for? Do you miss listening to the birds? Or the wind? Or sensing the vibration of your own breath? This returning to being in touch with “myself” is why I do occasional retreats. (Can you relate to that word “returning” better than “retreating?” I know I do.) For me, the mandala of the spiritual life has a center point, sometimes called the bindi. It’s the home base. The place that gives energy to all that radiates from it. If I create a mandala, either alone (which I do a lot) or with others, I start from this point and draw or paint, or lay out sand or stones, often using many colors, to make shapes and even some recognizable forms. These arrangements will sometimes result in concentric circles swirling out from this bindi. (Think “the Big Bang” of the Universe.) At other times, a whole series of smaller segments or mandalas will emerge within the larger one. This is my life, the bindi being my truest aim. The outswirlings are the many ways in which I manifest that aim. In various spiritual traditions this bindi-essence is sometimes called the cave of the heart, or the inner temple⎯dwelling of the Holy Spirit, the holy of holies, true nature, or I AM…the list goes on. For myself it can go by many names, but mostly and ultimately by no name. (And I can say the same about “God.”) This center for me is experienced, more than conceptualized. It is visceral; a mood; a sensation; a pervasive stillness; a union. “Thou who has made Thy home in this depth of my heart, help me to give my full attention to this depth of my heart.” – Tamil song Returning home to the bindi point, or the cave of the heart, is always possible, moment to moment, even in the most chaotic situations. In fact, this is the whole work, the practice, the “pray always” injunction. And yet…and yet…For me, however, it often takes a bit more time and a bit more space in which to deepen into that place, to stabilize there for a while, to renew and celebrate what happens when I can truly stop, look and listen. Such returnings, for me, require more intention and attention than my daily schedule generally allows. I’ve done a good number of personal, solitary returns/retreats over the past fifty-plus years, for periods of a half-day to three weeks and everything in between. My return-practice began as a nun in the convent, was furthered in my association with Lee Lozowick and his gift to his students and friends of Triveni Retreat Center in the high desert of Arizona, and continues today with regular three- to five-day rest stops there, or at monasteries and centers run by other spiritual groups. Retreats/Returnings afford me something invaluable, even though they’re not always easy. I’ve lived through some that were honeymoons with the Beloved, and others that were a dance with the demons and a descent into hell. Still, I will persist, with God’s help. I won’t give up the practice even if my toes continued to get singed. Returning for me is an essential aspect of life in the twenty-first century when the insanity of speed, nonstop work, digital bombardment, and a world on fire are real with every day. I need rest, genuine “staycations” in the midst of insanity; I need some unstructured time, silence, solitude and availability to nature’s beauty to nurture my essence rather than merely satisfy my fantasies and travel urges. Look at your own busy-ness. Recall that Buddhist teacher Reginald Ray said, “busyness is laziness.” What did he mean by that? For him, such busyness keeps us in the illusion that we are getting somewhere, and forestalls the energy and intention it takes to return home. It keeps “the search” alive… more, better and different is the hazy, lazy detour around the cave of the heart. We must stop. There is simply no better way to say it. We must stop and sit still. And, for more than twenty minutes once a day. We may have no idea how close we already live to the bindi at the center; how available the heart is, always, until we give ourselves this gift: time to stop, to look, to listen. The poet Walt Whitman has said it for me. Like many poets, he knew the precious gift and necessity of slowing down, of doing nothing, of coming to rest in himself. In his famous testament Song of Myself he wrote, “I loaf and invite my soul; I lean and loaf at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.” Return again. Shall we?
Regina Sara Ryan, author Igniting the Inner Life
|
