Sacred Beauty Workshops

“Pure Magic”…”One of the coolest things I’ve ever done”…”A profoundly transformative and beautiful experience that resonates on and on…” The reviews from our first Sacred Beauty Workshop continue rolling in, marking a truly beautiful start to the Higher Haven’s Fall One-Day Retreat schedule.  Created with my good friend and great culinary light Chris Ferris, the class rolled out on a sun-dappled Sunday afternoon, bringing together a wonderfully diverse mix of like-souled women on a quest to collectively reconnect to the innate beauty within. Through teachings, talks, meditations and exercises, the group grappled with many of the beauty and femininity issues faced by modern women desiring to live more empowered lives of intuitive knowing. In the light of so many women looking for more authentic avenues for positive self-expression, the class proved timely.

After opening with a prayer and setting the day’s intentions for a non-ordinary sensory experience, we meditated a bit on the senses themselves, the six natural components upon which any human experience is built. In the West we tend to think of five senses but in many eastern theories of consciousness they talk about six, and its a very useful formulation when learning and teaching meditation. The six senses are – hearing, seeing, smelling and tasting – four that are easy to understand. The other two senses are the feeling body and the thinking mind, often arising simultaneously. According to many spiritual traditions, every experience we have will involve some combination of sound, sight, smells, tastes, feelings in the body and thoughts in the mind.

Now-centered and going deep, the group followed Chris’ lead exploring the faculties of sensation and how each relates to forming our beliefs about beauty. With a literal look at Sight, we explored how books, movies and even toys form our ideas of self worth from an early age. Taste – as in distinguishing flavor with the tongue as well as what is aesthetically excellent – was of course a grand slam home-run, given Chris’ well known and well-loved abilities, coupled with a focus on conscious eating. The menu consisted of Quinoa, lentil barley loaf, grilled and raw veggies, nuts, creamy hemp see with garlic and turmeric and of course Chocolate. Scent focused on essential oils, candles and other high-vibe olfactory instruments of ease and relaxation. Touch covered skin care through better choices around lotions and cosmetics as well as a dry brushing demo. Ericka Mason, an attendee but also skilled massage therapist, offered points on touch and technique.

At least those were the planned elements for the afternoon agenda . Being the sole, on-site representative of the Dude Nation, it was my chivalric duty to fade to the background, as the women present stepped into that secret, sacred garden created by the open-hearted feminine divine. Many thanks to Rebecca and Ashley and her friend Noella, Deirdre, Laurie, Ericka, Patty and Brinslee for taking part. And a special thanks to Chris for creating a great class as well as being instrumental in holding a Ceremonial, healing space for many. No doubt her great, great, great Grandfather, the distinguished Mohawk military and political leader Thayendanegea (translated: Two sticks tied together for strength) proudly passed on his blessing.  We’re putting our heads and hearts together at the next Sacred Beauty Workshop on Saturday, September 15th, beginning at 11 a.m, in hopes you’ll join us for another beautiful day.

On Retreat

I thought to start this post by referencing a quote on Retreat from Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, something about being as swift as the wind, or quiet like the forest, conquering like fire as you build your opponent a golden bridge to retreat across. But the retreat I’m referencing here is not one of withdrawal, but rather one of refuge, asylum and sanctuary. I make this annual retreat, this flight from the monotony of daily life, at least once a year, usually as one twelve month period subsides and another arises. And I always make it with my trusted teacher and master of meditation Shinzen Young.

This January, the retreat was held as it often is at The Mary and Joseph Retreat Center in Ranchos Palos Verde, southern California. Although red and green Christmas decorations still adorn the halls and walkways so soon after the first of the year, it’s a different tradition that calls us here. The prayer is a prayer of quiet, the infused contemplation of the soul uniting with God that is the journey of going from the surface of consciousness to the source. The retreat’s marketing materials state “come to our sacred grounds for a time of serenity, prayer and spiritual renewal,” which is an accurate overview of what occurs.

All the normal retreat happenings were present: the dull clang of the 5 a.m. wake up bell, the full plates of hearty fare that make meals a refuge from the psycho-spiritual work, the shuffle of silent, shoeless retreaters making their way into the silent zendo or meditation hall. The entire retreat is held in “Noble Silence” which means the only chatter you’ll hear during the week is the discourse emanating from your own head.

Of course there were Shinzen’s brilliant nightly dharma talks, hour plus discourses on Truth held in the zendo. We learned where yoga and sitting practice  touch and complement one another, both together fueling the earth-shaking, paradigm-shifting dissolution into cessation that is the goal of classical yoga. Another talk focused on the Four Noble Truths or more accurately, “The four truths realized by the nobles”, according to Shinzen, and how having complete sensory experiences of phenomena leads us to freedom. And there’s always Shinny’s unparalleled, entertaining vocabulary, a litany of esoteric words and phrases unmatched by anyone  I know. This year, the back page of my notebook reads  – perspicacity, untoward, inveterate, little palliatives and palpable visage, to name just a few.

If you’re interested in learning more about the Art of Peace and how retreat can actually forward your life, check out Shinzen’s teachings at www.shinzen.org and www.meditationtraining.org. Or jump-start your practice at a One Day Retreat with us this Fall. We look forward to seeing and sitting with you. 

My Psychic War With David Sedaris

I’m arguing with David Sedaris over ownership of a small bottle of ketchup and things are starting to go the way of rotten, airborne tomatoes. “I wouldn’t have given it to you unless it was your birthday,” he tells me, punctuating his statement with a heaping gulp of what looks and smells like seafood pasta, thankfully rendered temporarily unable to form his next biting sentence.

It’s Saturday night and I’m at the small table they have set up for him in the lobby of the Congress Theater after his reading in downtown Chicago, whilst the author unabashedly wolfs down another forkful of late night dinner. Very late, in fact, now as Saturday night morphs into Sunday morning. The reason is the long, snaking line of fans behind me, all clutching copies of Sedaris’ books like Naked and Dress Your Family In Corduroy and Denim, all who want more than his illegible signature on the title page of their books. What they want with the funny, famous writer is their moment. The moment that is currently mine to take.

We come to terms over the tiny, hotel refrigerator bottle of Heinz 57 that he gave to me at an Arizona bookstore ten years prior, back during his Me Talk Pretty One Day tour. HE says it must have been a special celebratory occasion, to be gifted with such a fine curios as said ketchup. I say that I simply raised my hand, albeit with Arnold Horshack enthusiasm.

Regardless, I’ve kept the small bottle for years, a silly treasured heirloom, and so am pleased to add to my David Sedaris Oddities Collection one of the Chinese postcards that are part of his current giveaway. Slipping the antiquated photo of a Pekingese dog skull into my signed copy of his latest book Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk, I notice he’s scrawled “To Paul: So we Meet Again… Warlock”

This throws me, a hiccup in time, as all falls away and I’m left wondering at Sedaris’ intuitive powers at a new level, given that I AM a real Warlock. For a moment I fear that a psychic X-Men style clash is about to ensue, one that would surely destroy the theater as well as a large percentage of his innocent fans, lined up like cord wood. But the moment passes, when the side-splitting craccck! of one of Sedaris’ shellfish brings me suddenly back. Rather than engage him in a psychic wrestling match that will leave us both drained for days, I decide to let Sedaris down a little easier, asking him instead about writing, and in particular his practice of hand copying beautiful passages from literature. “Just to feel the rhythm of stringing together that particular set of words?” I ask. “It can help your writing,” he says. “As can writing everyday. And on weekends… and not taking Holidays off. I know it all sounds like a lot of work, but that’s it. Oh, and read everything you can get your hands on.”

I thank him, leaving him with something I think is semi-ominous sounding and emphatic, like, “Surely our paths will cross once more,” something two secret Warlocks might exchange with a wink and a nod. On the way out, I think about finding an opening on a spiritual blog for a dirty little birdy like David Sedaris, quickly deciding that an observer of the human condition with his powers deserves a spot. I consider the courage it takes to laugh at the darkness, and decide there’s no one darker and funnier and maybe more courageous than David Sedaris. Then I contemplate the writer’s ability to take the complex, the conflicted and the insane and make people feel good about them. Finally, the spiritual teacher comes to mind who once told me that “When the going gets tough… the tough laugh.” When I reach home, I notice a bright pink ridge of light edging the black eastern horizon.