Silent retreat October 23 through the 25th, 2017

Monastery of the Holy Spirit, Conyers Georgia.

These are the “Ah-ha’s” or insights I journaled while engaged in a three – day silent retreat in Georgia. I was absolutely surprised and overwhelmed by the affect this process had on me.

  • I take life too seriously i.e.: there isn’t enough time, money etc. Outcome: I am worth taking time to relax, do what I want and I’m worth a lot even if I’m not producing something/working.
  • If I’m peaceful/calm all around me is peaceful and calm as well. I ultimately decided to leave the bee in my room alone, Ultimately he disappeared.
  • I had been afraid that he would sting me in the night when I was asleep. I was about to end his life when I decided he was best left alone. The outcome was more peaceful. Perhaps he escaped.
  • I’m obsessed with communication and contact with others; leading me to feel as though I’m needed i.e. valuable. I need me and I’m valuable to me! Other’s opinions of me are not so important.
  • I have the right to rearrange the space (furniture) around me to create convenience and order as I see it. Clutter/chaos don’t bode well with me.
  • I don’t have to “fill” my time.
  • I’d like to host a silent retreat, done my way, rather than the religious way. I would channel, serve vegetarian food, offer no religion, offer meditation (still and walking) and an oral recap for each participant at the end.
  • I need to burn the candle on the mountain for my mother as a ceremony and grieve her loss.
  • My underwater dream of sharks and boats crashing against docks, waves and each other is all about my emotions crashing around and not being expressed. I need to feel, breathe and express my feelings more often.
  • I miss Sandie, my wife/my feminine side. I control the vulnerable part of me, so I don’t have to feel/control my terror. Dogs in my dreams (large black menacing Rottweilers) may be part of my protection inside. Struggle makes me feel vulnerable.
  • I don’t want to feel the terror or the vulnerability. My essence could come through more often if I allow the terror/vulnerability to be felt. Perhaps the trauma in my dream, was being projected on others. I’m not giving myself love/vulnerability.

Active imagination dialogue: dogs.

(Imagining I am talking to the dogs in my dream and I’m asking questions of them)

I then write down the answers.

Gregory: Dogs: who are you? What do you want from me? What do you bring up in me?

Answer: the angry aspect of me is trying to eat me from the inside out. The dogs suggest that remaining mindful, expressing my fear and anger, might calm these feelings.

Note to myself: watch the film “In Utero”.

On the last day of my retreat I received feedback from two of my Chiron brothers who met me at the Monastery:

Group feedback from George Poirier and Farra Allen.

“Symbolically, we are the monks I am witnessing at the monastery where the silent retreat is taking place”.

The essence of spiritual work, the real work, is done in silence versus the work the ego does which consistently expresses in an outward manner.

Essence versus ego is the same as silence versus verbalizing (outward direction). The ego is obsessed with survival. The essence of each of us is eternal and therefore feels no fear of survival, it simply is. It is the “real deal”.