I hope that this message finds you fulfilled and delighted on this glorious summer day.
I am just back from the most radiant retreat in Joshua Tree, California. Immersed in deep practice, surrounded by likeminded people, settled in quiet, and shimmering in 40 degree heat, I felt sweet shift within – a delicious melting away of resistance to life. An awakening to another marvellous level of life’s intrinsic beauty. It was ecstatic – but totally ordinary. Sumptuous – and light.
When I was living at the Omega Institute in upstate New York, I used to go on these four mile walks around the lake each day. I had just been though a really hard time in my life, and was still recovering. The walks started as a hangover from my deranged fitness routine – when I had lived in Berlin the year before, I wouldn’t allow myself to eat dinner unless I had swum at least 20 laps in the cold pool at the outdoor Schwimmenbad. It’s so incredible, how many young women faced, like me, such weird ideas about body image that we literally starve ourselves and put ourselves through dreadful rituals of self-diminishment. I was convinced that if I didn’t at least walk everyday, that I would gain weight, and utterly lose control.
Photo by Robert Moses Joyce
Hello Dearest,
I wonder where you are while reading this? Are you on your I-pad by the sea, or ferreting away a little time to yourself whilst at work? Are you feeling well? Wilted by the humidity? Wherever you are this summer, I hope you are resourced in beneficial ways, and able to enjoy this wild ride of life…
