This Photo was taken by My friend Carolyn on the
last night of our recent retreat at Lifebridge Sanctuary
in upstate NY. This Mandala was a group effort and was
created by many of the students at the retreat.
That afternoon, one of the other students was painting faces.
So yes, that is me, your Million Mandalas for Peace master
of ceremonies with my eyes in full rainbow regalia.
You may be asking yourself, what kind of retreat is this
anyway????
It's a retreat where we remember who and what we are
and who and what we aren't.
We are raised up to our perfect, open hearted, playful,
innocent, loving, childlike selves.
We Play..
Drums and rattles and harmonicas and we
breathe...deeply.
We dance until our bones are aching and sweat is pouring
down our bodies and our hair is plastered to our heads.
All the poisons being poured out of us by
pure joy.
We make big fires to keep us warm.
We laugh contagiously.
We sing without reservation.
We stay up late and get up early.
We recite our poems that come dripping out of our hearts like
honey.
We pray for emptiness and it comes and wraps around us
like still air and clouds.
We walk in the forest, looking for deer and bears and
other wild beasts.
But they are invisible and we cannot see them,
though we can hear their footsteps in the forest all
around us.
We have dreams and visions that wrap us together as one.
We make a magical, mournful, beautiful sound into the night,
and the night sings back to us..
loudly.
We shake and tremble,
every atom and cell vibrating with awe and wonder.
We question the nature of reality and illusion and
we receive a gift of understanding that is as tidy
as an unfurled, tangled ball of yarn,
messy and everything,
everything, everything,
not a thing of words.
A ghost gives a gift of a red heart leaf from heaven.
Sometimes we cry.
We embrace one another.
We see one another.
We allow ourselves to be vulnerable
or shy.
We celebrate each and every miracle moment
and time flies past with hurricane force winds.
We reach out, we reach in.
We let be.
We experience ONENESS.
We experience LOVE.
We WAKE UP... just a little bit more.
Our Beloved teacher wraps us in a blanket of
pure LOVE and PEACE and ACCEPTANCE.
She is a perfect flower. She is a happy
playful cute Buddhahahahaha!
It is paradise.
So, this is me...
And this is the Mandala we all made
together....
~