Yes, yoga retreats. They get a bad rap at times in the yoga world.
Expensive, bougie, inaccessible. I'm so clear that retreats are not a luxury but a necessity.
To retreat means to literally pull back, retract, remove oneself from the everyday world for a while.
The necessity of retreat is this question:
Can we make space for ourselves whenever possible?
A retreat can be a pause between sentences, a deep breath, a walk on lunch break, an evening bath or a longer self-care focused vacation.
Taking space out of our daily lives doesn't have to be exclusive or expensive. It can look many ways. The commitment is to create space to allow for truth to percolate to the surface.
Have you taken one lately?
There are so many hidden stories in our histories, culture and even within ourselves.
When we practice meditation or yoga we are connecting to the ancient lineage of wandering men and women who retreated from the world, for a time, sat under trees, in caves, by rivers seeking inner peace and power.
When we retreat, we join the lineage of those who make time for stories to emerge.
As Krishnamacharya says, "Strengthen yourself through the fire of practice and remain humble."
This essential yoga history comes alive within us each time we practice. Each time we retreat into ourselves.
I believe in this so much that as part of the 200-hour yoga training school I teach I request my students take their own personal retreat - whatever kind they can.
As a yoga community we have work to do around creating retreat spaces that are affordable, accessible, inclusive and safe to all. I'm so committed to this.
In my own busy, working mama, yoga-teacher life, I've found it is so important to take mini-retreat breaks through the day. I am also deeply committed to sit as long as I can, humbly and openly at the feet of a teacher.
To just learn. Absorb. All I can. And then create.
This week I was lucky to be able to do this on a 3-day retreat with Elena Brower, a masterful teacher of the yoga of emotions, especially within the family. I am so deeply grateful for her teachings.
I humbly offer you a few questions for reflection and a poem that emerged this week.
This piece is all about the connection to the history and sacred inner self.
The yogi or yogini within each of us that is always already there.
I use the term yogini because I connect to the feminine energy, but it is interchangeable for yogi if that fits better.
It's interspersed with a mantra-like Chant: (Yogini within, yogini within)
Yogini Within
(Yogini within, yogini within)
Bow to the yogini within
ancient coffee-colored men and women
dripping wisdom
in mountains and caves
of the heart
you'll find us
walking spiritual paths
like fireflies borne on wings of sunlight
dipping into our story to gain insight
She knows like Kali
sometimes feet got to stand on heads
to make things right
But we got a dance in our flow
though it might look like a fight
to survive
or arrive in the present moment
cos our struggle is nothing new
spirits restrained for centuries
of forgetting ourselves
attempts to bury truth in an ocean of illusion
(yogini within, yogini within)
i carry the seed of creation insight
meditation
with diligent practice
soft, dark wet earth I fertilized and rebirth divinity
see you throw me a core and i grow you a forest of trees
to feed the whole community
That's what being a yogini means
creativity
making it happen with the magic of our mindulness
our voice, our eyes
our wondering why's it gotta be that way sometimes
(yogini within, yogini within)
She sings from her core truth for troubled days
"It's time for you to know me
get still and breathe
see yourself in my reflection
trust what you feel
sister your instincts guide you right
and your feelings are real."
Slow swaying in flow together
she becomes me
we are earth and ocean
moon and tide,
breath and blood and love
rising light to my night on her knees
every salutation
a prayer to the goddess within
this yogini
here in front of me
deep inside of me
breathing life into the clay form of this human body
rapt attention on the rampancy of now
birthing ourselves to the present moment
as we flow
ever closer to ourselves
practicing with the fierceness of only
we set the yogini
within free
Some questions for reflection this week:
-What are your hidden stories? What do they feel, look, smell, taste like?
-Who are your powerful teachers and how can you sit with them?
-What large or small retreat can you create for yourself this week?
-Where are you called to be humble?
-What creative outpourings are ready to emerge?
Yours in a culture of study, retreat, reflection, expression, creation,
Susanna
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"Building community is to the collective as spiritual practice is to the individual." -Grace Lee Boggs
Build with me at www.SusannaBarkataki.com