Rocks and stones

Solitary Retreat

July 31 marks the first day of a week-long solitary retreat. I had been thinking about a solitary retreat since the end of the Dathun at Shambhala Mountain Center and the opportunity presented itself on Savary Island, where I usually spend the month of August with my family. Circumstances brought me a week alone and I embarked on the meditation retreat. At first I tried to work out a rigid schedule. However, this soon fell apart and the week determined its own schedule of sitting, work, walking and reading. Though the week was extremely difficult, with plenty of thoughts about giving up, the nights were the real challenge. Sleep became extremely hard to attain. Even on days when the work was hard (cutting firewood and the like), it seemed like the dam of incessant thoughts and stories burst forth with all its power as soon as I tried to lay down to sleep. And so, the week was almost sleepless on top of everything else. I became quite desperate at times, even having had bouts with insomnia on a regular basis during my life.