Reflections: Spiritual Retreat 2022

About this Reflections Series

A Retreat is permission to “vacate” your ordinary consciousness and slip into the mystical part of your nature so that you can ask soul-sized questions that reveal not answers to you, but truth. Examples of the questions in this Retreat include: What are my higher instincts, and do I respond to them? What are the natural impulses of my soul? How well do I know the content of my own soul? (Never mind the idea of finding a soulmate. We must first know the content of our own soul before we shop it out to another person.) Am I deliberately silencing guiding impulses because I live a distracted life? How different a person am I this year from the person I was last year at this time? What new directives are rumbling in my soul, telling me to make different choices? Does the thought of receiving guidance that is truly from the Sacred domain terrify me?

How would you know the answer to such delicious questions – unless you gave yourself the “inner space” to listen to your soul. Your mind cannot answer these questions. They are not logical questions. They are mystical questions – rooted in the exploration of inner mystery and the quest for sacred guidance. We go on Spiritual Retreats to enter into the deeper mysteries of our life journey and to set foot upon the life path our soul is directing, as that is the path we are really walking.

In an ideal world, each of us would find a way to go on a spiritual retreat for all of these reasons and so many more at least once a year. But it is not easy to exit our lives for a day, much less a week. And retreat centers are not easy to come by, much less ones that suit you. Our lives and lifestyles are not likely to change. There is a reason that the great spiritual leaders always sought out their retreat space. Whether you review the lives of Jesus or Buddha or the more human Ghandi and the Dalai Lama, they maintained the needs of their souls as their priority. Earthly concerns could not be attended to unless their spiritual stamina was taken care of.

As you are all aware, we are living in extraordinary times but what makes these times so rare is not only what is unfolding in the world around us. We are rapidly changing from within. Our health patterns are shifting. Our perceptual skills are expanding. Our sexuality is evolving. Our psyche is deepening. If ever there was a time to move past the religious idea of the soul and understand your soul as the source – the source – of your higher, mystical consciousness (your nuclear consciousness, if you want it in scientific language), it’s now. Hopefully we will come to see spiritual retreats as essential to our spiritual and “mystical” well-being as we view vacations and our physical/emotional health.

So, in order to accommodate my vision of making spiritual retreats accessible to everyone, I have adapted the classic Retreat to an online experience, making it possible for you to attend at a time that best suits your own schedule. And because this is an online Spiritual Retreat, you may attend it again and again as needed.

Structure:
Like all spiritual retreats, this program has been designed as an uninterrupted nine-day experience that includes both you and me. I will lead you into the retreat with two online lectures. Then for five consecutive days, you will be given daily spiritual instructions to guide you for that day. I have organized the flow and structure of this retreat in a way that supports the classical retreat experience. A brief description of the purpose and focus of each day is provided below. The guidance that you will receive on the actual day will include a deeper examination of that day’s inner work as well as prayers, meditative guidance and specific grace to focus on. At the end of those five days, we will meet again for two more online seminars. A journal is an essential tool for this retreat.