treats and retreats – post yoga and meditation retreat post

We felt so disoriented after the yoga and meditation retreat that Matan and I managed to lose our way several times. Driving at the north of Israel, we reached areas not recognized by the GPS system of his iPhone. Since we were feeling pretty relaxed (him) and relieved (me) after the three intense days of the retreat we didn’t really mind getting lost.

Having spent so much time locked in our heads (me) and floating in space (him) – going back to noisy Tel-Aviv had to be “trippy”. The sun was setting while we were looking for the right road, and the landscape was so beautiful, so we didn’t mind all the u-turns and zig-zagging. A phone call from a mutual friend who just returned from a “tantra” retreat at the desert – made us crack out laughing, and provided more entertainment for us.

While we were mainly sitting and being (trying to concentrate on our breathe) – our friend experienced the Israeli-spiritual version of “Eyes Wide Shut”. 180 degrees from what we’ve been through… He was being caressed by 15 women lying blindfolded on his beck, jumped naked for hours, danced, danced, danced, and went through various bizarre and intimate experiences. While we were eating boring vegetarian food – he had feasts. While we were contemplating in silence, he was singing and dancing. When he told us he booked a vacation and that he’s going to Osho’s Ashram in India, we burst out laughing. It was so radically different from what we’ve been through…

There’s an unforgettable scene in a rather lame movie called “I heart Huckabees”

Jason Schwatzman plays an eco- activist who sings praise to a rock for simply existing. He stands in a parking lot and reads a poem:  “you rock, rock” – he reads – for sitting and “is”ing. the name of the rock includes its essence – it rocks. it is. it is a rock. hence it rocks to be a rock. what sounds like such a simple thing – is not that easy for us humans, in order to rock, it often feels we need to do things, that being isn’t enough.

One of the lessons i’ve learned during the retreat was to be more attuned to both inner and external noises.

changing perspective helps.
going out of one’s comfort zone helps too.

breaking habits and changing our point of view on reality is so important.

In some of the pictures here Matan tried to look at the world from the point of view of an insect, of a flower, of grass.

I think we’re often missing things because we try to look at them from the outside, from a bird’s eye perspective, striving to learn more about the world by looking at things from a distance. Being more attuned to nature and to ourselves also implies looking at things from within, from below, closing the distance between us and what we’re looking on. I’m sure  insects and flowers and grass experience the world differently, hear and see and feel in different colors and sounds. I bet rocks can also sense the world around them. I am sure that other than being (and rocking) they merge with their surrounding, hence, they do things merely by being.