Yes, these are two separate audio links – one below, one above. You will find my reading of the essay right before the opening “Hi friends”👇🏾. New and full moon newsletters also include a guided meditation at the very top of the email 👆🏾 — an archive of these meditations lives here. Enjoy!
Enter your week soulfully. Many of us long to bring more sacredness into our lives. But we rarely make space to do so. Registration is open for Make Sacred Space: Enchanting Time for Meditation • Intuition • Creativity, four evenings of soulful time for creation and contemplation. Sundays in May, 7–8:15 pm ET. Registration and more info here.
Listen to me read this essay:
Hi friends
Many thanks to everyone who recently renewed their yearly paid subscriptions with the anniversary of my move to this platform. I hope what I share in these newsletters nudges the needle (even a little) towards awakening for all. That is my deepest intention. Because I believe 1) the crises and chaos of these times require the unwavering faith that we can and will get free together, 2) we need practices of intuition & imagination to do so and 3) every tiny action tips us closer. I consider all my writing & teaching as intimate alchemies of meaning making, transforming my (often rather intense) life experiences into expressions for freedom. I feel immense gratitude to receive financial support for this personal project of creating collages, essays, and meditations to serve our collective liberation. And, regardless if you can be a paid subscriber or not, I truly appreciate your presence and attention. Thank you for being here.
I just got back from sitting a week-long silent retreat for 100 Black women. Wow! What an incredible experience. I have a lot to say about that. Next time. Today, I will continue my California hiking series and tell you about my accidental two-hour trek.
I first visited Spirit Rock Meditation Center in 2010 and, for almost a decade, both practiced and taught there. However, I had not been back in many years. A lot has changed in our world and in my life since then. For those who’ve never been, the center is located on unceded Coast Miwok territory in the San Geronimo valley of West Marin County. I’d forgotten how very beautiful that land is. Beautiful and hilly. Sheesh! Was the hike between the dining and meditation halls always so steep? 😮💨 Fortunately, my replaced hip and compromised lungs have been feeling stronger ever since my new year’s trip to mountainous Aotearoa – aka New Zealand (my first day walking around Auckland, my fitness app informed me that I had climbed 23 flights of stairs). Even so, for the first couple of days of this retreat, I felt challenged walking up and down the hill between sessions. As I did so, I recalled all my years practicing and teaching when this was not so. Yes, it had been much (muuuuch) easier. And, I didn’t appreciate it at the time. Which led me to wonder: What ease am I oblivious to now?
For those who’ve never been on a silent meditation retreat, there’s no talking (except in scheduled small-group or one-on-one conversations with teachers). Phones and other gadgets are abandoned. Also, reading and writing are discouraged. [Though - shhhh - I always keep a notebook in my room where I can quickly jot down notes I may otherwise forget. But I do avoid any journaling or re-reading of what I’ve written.] The point of all this “silence” is to limit discursive or conceptual thinking. Precisely because our thoughts are what transport us to the past or propel us to the future, emphasis is placed on building our capacity to be in the present moment through sensory awareness. We practice mindfulness in the formal periods of sitting and walking. And, we attempt to bring this present-moment, embodied awareness into everything. In fact, this (not the silence itself) is the most challenging part: maintaining (any) continuity of mindfulness — while transitioning between sessions, eating, doing your “yogi job,” brushing your teeth, waking up, going to sleep, showering, walking up the interminable hill… or hiking.
After the first couple of days, I had traversed a few of the shorter trails spread around the land. While walking in the sunny hills or through the cool woods, I attempted to maintain awareness of my body, my breath, sensing, seeing, smelling... hearing the surrounding bird songs and running streams. All the while noticing and releasing the (many) thoughts and stories which disconnected me from the beauty all around. On the third full day, I decided to check out the trail called “The Great Loop.” Because my visits since 2014 were as a teacher, never providing time to hike, I hadn’t done this loop in over ten years. I did not consult the map before I left. And I did not remember how long it is (almost three miles). Or how steep (very). I pretty much completely forgot anything about this trail. Including its beauty.
I set out after the lunch break, intending to be back for the next sit. [Uh, nope.] I ascended the path feeling the heat of the afternoon, glad I’d brought plenty of water. The sky was clear with only a few feathery cirrus clouds streaking the blue expanse. A crow cawed as it crossed ahead. I slowly rose farther and farther above the campus and noted the the community hall and teachers’ village below. A hawk passed close enough above for me to distinguish its dark brown feathers. Bright orange California poppies lined the way, open-faced to the shining sun. Many other wildflowers dotted the budding grasses with shades of purple and yellow and pink. Skittish lizards zipped across the ground in front of me. Once I was high enough, I now looked down on hawks hunting for prey. Eight of them danced in graceful loops. 8 hawks. A symbol of infinity. This is about the time I realized I would actually be crossing the entire range of eastern hills and down through the valley to reach the other side. Okay, I thought, this may take longer than I planned. Oh well. I would simply miss a practice period. Or two. I could still be with my experience here, on the path.
This is the power of retreat – a release from obligations and from diversions. The complete emphasis on presence. It’s all “practice.” The hope is to remember that once you leave. Because the point of all this silent presence-ing is freedom in our lives. Freedom from our conditioned ancestral, familial and social patterns — patterns rooted in old traumas and stories of lack. I’ve learned I can’t think my way out of those patterns. But when I can practice more presence, a different way of being emerges within me. I am less yanked around by my compulsions and reactions. I can let go of fears and limiting beliefs. I can respond to the world from a place of expansion and possibilities. I am present to the beauty that’s already here. Including and perhaps especially the beauty within me. This is why I practice.
Like many retreats, the morning meditations were structured around the Satipatthana Sutta (the teachings on the four foundations of mindfulness). I explored the four as I walked – bringing awareness to sensations in the body, the pleasantness (or not) of those sensations, the quality of any thoughts and emotions, and the various processes at play in my experience. Basically, I practiced being present to whatever was happening — paying attention to anywhere I found clinging, and (simply) letting go (not always easy). The beauty around me made paying attention incredibly pleasant. And, I noted the little that was unpleasant. I found myself recollecting the refrain from the sutta which repeatedly emphasizes awareness of things internally and externally (and both) and awareness of things arising and passing away (and both). I felt the wind on my skin (external) and the air entering my lungs (internal). I sensed my foot contacting the ground (arising) and leaving the ground (passing away). I watched thoughts come and go and noticed which were stickier.
Right before I reached the peak, I suddenly remembered earlier climbs on this trail and realized that I would soon be facing the bay. When I finally reached the top of the ascent, the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco itself were appropriately occluded. See, I had lived in the city in my early twenties, but so much about that time feels like a distant mystery. I was young and felt lost. I partied a lot and experimented with drugs and sex. I tried to do good in the world, working with kids in the Tenderloin. I struggled to understand my identity as a Black woman. I barely felt the Earth under my feet, but it was there. And I flowed within the great stream, whether I knew it or not.
I didn’t know about Spirit Rock then. I didn’t know much, about myself or really anything at all. Still, I felt a strong pull to waking up. Even though no one I knew had similar inclinations, that’s when I first began practicing meditation (and yoga) in earnest. I sought out teachers and teachings. I bought books and took classes. I started my path. As I’ve walked it, I gained wisdom and lost capacities, I made friends and lost relationships, I released expectations and cultivated determination. I practiced sensing beauty. I try to notice what is easeful. I continue learning to let go.
As I stood looking at the clouded city, I repeated the last line of the Satipatthana refrain, [she] abides independent, not clinging to anything in the world… independent, not clinging to anything in the world… independent, not clinging to anything in the world.
With love,
Sebene
Make Sacred Space:
Enchanting Time for Meditation • Intuition • Creation
A Soulful Start to Your Week * 30 minutes of guided meditation * 10 minutes of journaling prompts * 30 minutes of open space for dreaming & doing :: Four Sundays in May, 7–8:15 pm EST
Many of us long to bring more sacredness into our lives. But we rarely make space to do so. Come spend four Sundays cultivating enchanted time for contemplation and creativity.
Next month, I’ll be back at Omega Institute with my friends Jeff & Dan for Meditation Party.
Or join me in June for The Greatest Love of All with the dream team: Dawn, Kate and La. And in October I will be back for an encore with Dan & Jeff. Scholarships are available for all three programs.
🌕 The Great Loop of Beauty