Barbara Hurd has some interesting thoughts on retreats or refuges, a place to get away from it all so that we can get a better look at ourselves and the world around us, free from noise or distractions. Some retreats last only a short time: a few hours perhaps, while others may go on for a weekend or even a week or two. Sometimes though, a retreat may go on indefinitely. Michael is a friend of hers who is busy "dismantling his identity as a artist living by the edge of a swamp."
"We talk for hours on the boardwalk at Cranesville. Michael isn't going into hiding; he's retreating from a path that wasn't headed toward what, for him, is being fully human. He's not sure what that means except a quiet letting go, a deliberate choice to go toward some kind of refuge that nourishes his spirit. All the great spiritual leaders have done it, from Buddha to Christ to Gandhi. They've withdrawn for a few days or weeks to sit in caves and under trees, to wander in deserts, alone, packing as little as possible into their knapsacks. They're after, I think, some moments of trackless quiet, a chance to blur the footprints, the sense of having been someplace, of having someplace to get to. A chance to see what happens when the past and the future stop tugging on the leads and the present opens like a well."
-- Barbara Hurd --
"Refugium"
from Summer: A Spiritual Biography of the Season
"A chance to see what happens when the past and the future stop tugging on the leads and the present opens like a well."
This is a central theme in many Eastern traditions, including Buddhism and Taoism. We should avoid the trap of living in the past or living for the future, and instead, concentrate on living in the present, the Now. We should focus on what we are doing now and on what is going on around us Now.
"Trust no future, however pleasant!
Let the
dead past bury its dead!
Act, - act in the living Present!
-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow --
from "A Psalm of Life"
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