This year, I stepped away from the three-month rains retreat and allowed myself to wander a little into spiritual diversity — attending a deeply healing voice retreat, joining the illuminating rains retreat for two weeks in Plum Village, and then finding my way to a Buddhist center in the French Pyrenees for a self-guided solo retreat.
When I arrived, winter greeted me with its first snow: the soft crackle of the path beneath my feet, dusk whitening the trees, the cold brushing my face like a blessing. It was as though I had stepped directly into the mountains’ embrace — the whole valley breathing with me. I realized how much I had missed snow — its way of turning everything into a listening.
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The voice retreat brought healing to my teenage self who loved to sing and longed for a spiritual path. The rains retreat offered luminous insights to the quiet corners of my inner life. And here, meditating in the mountains, I met the old dream of my youth — the hermit I once imagined becoming. After twenty-five years of practice, I feel I have touched each of my early aspirations.
May my time here open in the most natural and nourishing way — full of clarity, earth, and inner spaciousness.
May these days unfold like slow, luminous breaths, guiding me deeper into the heart of practice and into the quiet wisdom of the mountains.
May my mind be open like the sky, my heart steady as the mountains, and my steps gentle as falling snow.
