What do you set off with when you set off on retreat?

Everything you've learnt I guess...

When I first embarked on my teacher training I had much to learn (and I still do!) On the physical level it was about letting go of the idea that only by pushing yourself to your limit are you able to transcend. Ruth taught me to hold back and in a sense I've been re-learning this ever since. Now I realize it is not only on the physical level that we feel the need to fill until bursting but also when it comes to our direction and to what we choose to do with our lives. I can't help but feel that with all this overstretching something is getting lost, the art of living well.

Step in the retreat. A retreat where we remember the art of living well, this most human of arts. The hustler in us, the part of us that is devoted to pushing, to covering more surface yet never truly getting beneath the skin is channeled into stillness. We challenge it. After all would it not be wonderful if we could place all our energy into the precise locations from where it could resurrect twice, thrice, four times as powerful. And when the energy increases, the energy heals, in a way that is so effortless.

This is how we set off on retreat