On Retreat Until May 13
I’m leaving tomorrow morning for the final DPP retreat in Yucca Valley, then staying on to attend Jack Kornfield’s annual Spring Retreat, so I won’t be posting again after until I get back on May 13.
At the first DPP retreat in 2011 (which was also held in Yucca Valley) Phillip Moffitt asked each of us to go out into the desert and find a stone — one that appealed to us for some reason or other — and to bring it back into the meditation hall. We did a little ceremony with them then, which involved placing them, one by one, on a larger stone that was passed around the room, and each of us calling to mind our deepest intention for the 2-year program we’d just to embarked upon.
(I’m not really sure why I chose the stone I did…but I think it was because it had a lot of colors in it — which made it seem complex and worthy of investigation — but mostly, I think, because it sparkled in the sunlight.)
Now the program is ending. And we’ve been asked to bring these same stones back, to be used as part of our closing ceremony. I don’t know what the ceremony will be like. But this stone has been sitting on my home alter all this time, along with a lot of other stones and various things I’ve collected on other retreats and significant occasions.
I wonder if the ceremony will include bringing the stones back home, or if we’ll leave them out there in the dessert.
Either way, the intention I made that first night will stay with me.