Lessons From The South Tyrolean Forest

A five day meditation retreat with ten total days in Italy??? Woohoo! So much to do, to plan, to organize, to research, to experience. Clothes to pack, gear to buy, travel to schedule. How do I fit all this stuff? Pack Unpack Add Subtract Repack. TONS of arrangements to make for everyone to be taken care of at home and work. Busy busy busy busy busy.

Flight from Newark to Milan. Renting a car and DRIVING in Milan - aaauuuggh! Google maps, paper maps, what does that sign mean??? Each lane has its own speed limit. Why does it keep changing?? Change Italian to English, kilometers to miles, meters to feet, euros to dollars. Gelato break on the lake, time to keep moving.

The mountains, the scenery, it's indescribable! Picture Picture Picture. Text home, check in, picture. Explore hotel, explore town, connect with sangha, picture picture. So excited to start.

And then finally, it all stopped. Maybe not stopped, but slowed. We began our retreat meditation practices, focusing on connecting to the elements in nature and resting in the space they dissolve into. Every morning we sat in the forest together, feeling the mossy beds, snacking on wild blueberries, and watching the sunlight streak through the canopy of trees. We sat together in silence, or listened to our teacher's wisdom, or recited Vedic chants together. After a few hours, we separated and followed our own inclinations to move either with others, or alone in silence, repeating this same pattern daily.

I found myself drawn to the mountains and longing for silence. As a non-hiker, the trails seemed daunting, and I needed a few days to get oriented to the map (and for the thunderstorms to stop chasing me away). On the third day, I took the "hard way" to the top of the nearest peak, and realized that was the day I truly dropped into my meditation practice. I chanted on the way up and down, spent time experiencing the beauty of the moment, rested alone at the top and found quiet.

When I wasn't on the mountain though, I connected just as strongly to my sangha, most of whom I had only every seen as a head on a Zoom video. Meeting these folks from all around the world and learning their stories was a highlight of the trip that I didn't expect. We ate meals together and sometimes hiked together, but were comfortable being together in silence, or sharing our practice experiences. It made for some rich moments and deep bonds formed quickly among us.

On the last day of our retreat, I had a very strong experience in meditation that led me to wanting to stay closer to the ground rather than the summit. I headed across the mountain to the easternmost paths and quite unexpectedly ran into my teacher, who was having lunch with two other students at one of the mountain's "huttes" (restaurants). I said I was headed to the next hutte where I was meeting my friends who were traveling by car, and she told me to follow a certain branch of the trail, because it was quite magical. Two things struck me on that magical path.

First, it offered the most utterly amazing and best view of the Dolomite mountains I had seen so far. Second, the path itself became completely different from every other I had been on. In the deeply wooded section, with the dirt path meandering up and down over rocks and roots, around trees and along small waterfalls, I realized I had been here before. These paths were just like ones I hike in New Jersey, about ten minutes from my house. It was a strange moment when I realized that it had taken coming to Italy for me to truly appreciate my own home.

There were many more lessons from my retreat, but that moment in the magical Italian/New Jerseyan forest is the one I wanted to share here. Connecting to the elements in nature can be done anywhere at any moment, and is a direct path to peace within. Detaching from the doing and the busyness to smell, taste, see, touch, and hear the world around me brings me back into my body from my racing mind. Spending more time is nature is the best way for me to find ground in everyday householder life.

Vacation bliss is easily forgotten when we get back to our normal worlds, but retreat experiences can subtly shift perspective. Even when we feel we've forgotten our lesson, those embodied realizations don't disappear. They just get clouded over by the routine of our habits and patterns. It's always possible to find the inward path back to that subtle knowing. For me, the path is through the direct experience of nature. I would argue that it is the best path for most of us.

I'm grateful for my teachers, my fellow practitioners, my students, my family and friends, and all the experiences of life that lead me to connection to my true self, and the deep knowing that lies within.

Om Shanti,

Laura