Sweet as honey, Bitter as Lemons: Part 1

Have you ever watched a bumble bee pollinate a flower? It's quite magical, actually. They buzz around, dabbling here and there with different flower buds, trying them out, and continue on buzzing, skimming the surface; wings keeping them afloat. Then they find a delicious looking flower. They land, so meticulously, on the bud, and decide to delve deeper. The outside is tasty, but the inside is where the real good stuff is. It takes them a while to get settled once they've decided to, but then they dig. Delicately, but firmly, planting and digging their legs into the center. It presents some challenges along the way: other bees trying to push of the lucky one who has got his head in the game; the wind picking up out of nowhere, slightly bumping the bee off its course. But the center of the chosen flower is where the nectar is the sweetest, and it's worth digging for. Somehow, the bee knows this to be the truth. Arrival, at last! The center! So delicious, but so exhausting from all the work to get there. Once the bee has tasted enough sweetness, she backs out, dabbling the outer edges once again, then moves on to her next journey, to the heart of the next flower. But the bumble bee has made a difference in the world of bumble bees, other flowers, and therefore...the entire universe.

This, my friends, is the perfect metaphor for meditation. The retreat I went on, proved to be painfully challenging, and pricelessly rewarding. As I arrived at the center called Insight Medication Society (IMS), I had a realization of what I was about to actually embark on. YIKES, this is what i chose for a vacation?! That's all I could think. I was so wound up I was moving at the speed of lightening to try and avoid the reality that was about to smack me upside the head! I finally got settled in a bit, learned my "yogi job" (tasks which we perform every day to keep the center clean and running), and met my room mate. Yes, folks, I had a room mate who I didn't talk to for 9 days!! (She was wonderful).

So let me give you a pretty regular schedule for my day.

5:15 wake up

5:45-6:30 sit.

6:30-7:15 breakfast.

7:15-8:15 work period

8:15-9 sit with instructions.

9:15-10 walking meditation.

10-10:45 sit.

10:45-11:30 walk.

11:30-12 sit.

12-1:30 lunch /(my yogi job=lunch dishes)

1:30-2:15 walk.

2:15-3 sit.

3-4 movement meditation (gentle yoga)

4-4:45 sit.

5-6:15 Tea (dinner)

6:15-6:45 sit.

6:45-7:30 walk

7:30-8:30 Dharma talk

8:30-9 walk

9-9:30 Metta chant and sit.

9:30 rest or option to practice (sit)

I've decided to break these blogs up into a few days at a time...so I'll start with the first full day of the above schedule (which was day 2). The bell was rung at 5:15 am for wake up...first sit at 5:45. I slept through it. Boy was I tired! So as the day proceeded, and the meditation went on, I was pretty restless. Right before the arrival of this Vispassana (Mindfulness) Retreat, there had been a 6-day Metta (loving-kindness) retreat, and some of the people on the Metta retreat were staying for Vipassana retreat. SO, the mood was pretty thick with meditation. I was so unsettled, and restless, all day I was questioning why I had come to this place. Anyway, I made it to the end of the day, having completed 3 seated meditations (45 minutes each..6/day), and none of the walking meditations. The walking meditation was not working for me...not yet. At the end of the day though, I slept SO soundly. I found this interesting the next morning when I felt fully alert and rested when the 5:15 bell went off. Day 2: check!

Day 3: Woke up really stiff. I struggled all morning trying to find some emotional balance within myself. I kept going back and forth from feeling very happy I came, to feeling completely apathetic towards the entire situation. I did some gentle yoga in the afternoon that was led by a teacher there, and it seemed to help a lot. Being on my yoga mat always feels like home, so it helped me settle quite a bit. I also started to feel my whole nervous system started to really slow down...holy exhaustion!! I was very tired by the afternoon, and napped for a while. I didn't realize how wound up I was until silence was everywhere, and my only task for the day was sitting, walking and eating...all done quite slowly. So as day 2 neared the end, I was pretty neutral about everything. At the end of every day, we listened to the teachers give us a 'dharma talk' which was basically an inspirational talk about how to lead us on and keep us on a good path of meditation for the week. The first one was at the end of this day and it was fabulous...then I slept very soundly again, ready for day 3.

Day 4: I woke up a little less stiff. For the first morning sit, I laid on my back in the meditation hall because my back was still a bit sore...I played with my heart energy for a while :-) The second sitting went REALLY well today...I finally started to feel very present. So, the schedule above was pretty much what happened every day...but some days we were broken up into small groups (7 people, and it was the same group for the whole week) and we had an "interview" aka group meeting with one of the 3 teachers of the retreat. They do this to kind of check in with how we are doing, and give us a short chance to speak/share with the group anything we might be experiencing so we can learn from each other and the teacher and offer us any advice that might be helpful to our practice. So today we had our first group meeting and it went pretty well. I was more emotional than I realized and hearing the sound of my own voice after not hearing it for a couple days took me by surprise with many tears. After the meeting I decided to go for a walk in the woods to kind of unwind and I got a little lost which was nice. IMS has 250 acres of land, much of which is magical enchanted forest, so it was pretty beautiful. And it had just rained that morning so there were tons of red efts on the paths that were so cute and bright orange :-). I wore myself out, and took a nap after lunch before sitting some more. I was starting to feel a little lonely and longing for some hugs and smiles...but I made it through the day and slept soundly yet again.

Stay tuned for days 5-7...those were the juicier ones :-)

Light and Love,

Sarah