What To Bring
I asked my teacher, Lila Wheeler, if she had any advice on what I should bring with me for the 6-week retreat at IMS, and she said, “You mean, like a teddy bear?”
And I, of course, laughed.
But she said, “I’m not kidding about the teddy bear.”
Turns out, there’s sort of a tradition on these long retreats of people bringing things to help ease the transition, especially things that will make their room feel like “home.”
Lila said she has a special bedspread she likes to bring….and sometimes even a lamp! I’m coming by plane, so there won’t be anything like that.
For now, I think I’ll bring:
* A postcard of the Quan Yin statue that I love to visit at the St. Louis Art Museum
* A little, brass, “Happy Buddha” (round and about the size of a golf ball) that I think is really the image of some Chinese saint, but who cares…in my mind, it’s the Buddha
* The photo that I keep on my alter at home of my first teacher and on-going inspiration, Mirabai Bush
* A string of paper Tibetan prayer flags that’s in my kitchen right now
* Maybe a litte vase that I can put fresh wildflowers in
* The string of beads I made during the DPP to represent the Seven Factors of Enlightenment
* And something handwritten….I’m not sure what…maybe one of the letters I write to myself every year on New Year’s Day???
It feels like there’s something else, but I don’t know what. (I’m a greed type, so it might just be that.)
Hmmm.
I’ll keep you posted.
(image from: A Whole World, by Couprie and Louchard)