The rain had been calling all night, but by 6 am there was no reason to resist it any more… I opened the blinders and watched the pouring water dance with the leaves surrounding my window, the cabin, the majestic trees, the horizon. A sense of calm and awe washed over me, and the worries responsible for my sleepless state disappeared… while I inhaled the Beauty of Nature and exhaled my wish to surrender to it all.
It was my first morning at the Omega Institute and that in itself, felt like a miracle. It felt like a dream come true–which is my current definition of a miracle.
Why was I there? Because Liz Gilbert and Rob Bell decided to co-create for us all an opportunity to begin anew. To ground in our spiritual energy and be elevated by our creative sparks. They called this workshop The Art Of New Creation. The first evening had already felt like a deep hug to my heart, and I knew that morning that the day would be magical, deep, transformative and expansive. What a gentle promise to awaken to…
The gratitude lingers in my body, and I wish to share the most precious gem I collected within their words this weekend.
(This is for once not one of my pictures: this was taken from Elizabeth’s Gilbert’s IG page)
My day started by an hour of meditation in the sanctuary, which grounds the institute’s energy from uphill. I had arrived too late in Rhinebeck, the previous night, to have dinner and my body was asking for food–an unusual ask from her in the morning. However, we both decided that our mind needed relief more than our gut needed filling, and none of us regretted it.
I speak of my body as a companion now, because I’ve come to relate to her as the magical house and being than she is. Very much like the generous and joyous casita in Encanto, I now realize that my body is the most unconditionally loving living thing I will ever meet and call my own. And that morning my fasting body leisurely relaxed in the sacred atmosphere of the sanctuary, while my mind surrendered to my heart, and my heart reconnected to the soul energy that birth us all into this world.
After a nourishing breakfast in the lively dining hall, animated by the enthusiasm of the guests, the smell of freshly cooked eggs and delicious warm coffee, it was time to go to the main hall and let Liz’s enchanting voice heal me, while Rob’s playful energy kept us entertained and ready to be transformed, by a weekend none of the guests will ever forget, I’m sure of that much.
We talked about life and we talked about grief. We talked about the little ones that live deep inside each of our selves and the older spirits which guide us from the future. If you don’t believe in any of those concepts, that’s quite all right. I didn’t understand any of it either a few years ago. I’m pretty sure I still don’t! It is not meant to be understood anyway; it’s meant to be experienced. We talked about the inner dialog we get lost in with our inner persecutors and those who surround us. We wrote about our most sacred dreams and were all humbled to see how simple they actually are, how within our reach they lie, how they tenderly await for us to come back to our senses and leave our conditioning for others to worship. We drew metaphors on blank pages of paper without expecting the secrets they would reveal to our teary eyes, confused minds and softening hearts. We shared our words with strangers and received the gift of their smiles, of their untold-before stirrings and forgotten childlike wisdom. We watched Liz’s integrity and loving kindness lit the room and the dark corners of our humanness; and we followed Rob’s clever tricks and anecdotes on the road to freedom. We had deep conversations without even thinking of sharing our names, and shared with each other the knowing that this is the truth all the religions have tried to point towards:
That this is who we’re meant to become, how we were designed to interact, how it can all finally make sense and why it is so magical to be alive now. In this eternal NOW, that our culture does not connect to, honor or even recognize.
And I feel forever changed.
In one of our final exercises, Liz asked us to underline the 10 sentences throughout our notes that warmed our hearts and opened our minds at first glance. We were then guided to select 5 of those and to unwrap the little poem they shaped, as a sacred letter to guide us home, as the message we were meant to receive during this enlightening weekend. A message to take with us, as a new found guiding star, to follow wholeheartedly, passionately, trustingly, wherever our curiosity would tell us to go now.
I want to share my poem with you. I want to share this gift, harnessed by my soul in the fertile soil of Liz Gilbert’s, Rob Bell’s–and the God of my understanding’s– words.
I hope they will wake something in you that will start seeking for the words YOU need to support you, deepen you, transport you… the words that will change your world. The words that will bring you back to you and the gift you are to us all.
From my heart to yours:
“There’s a well-lit path through this.
Magic is the thing that happens next!
Self-trust can be disguised as self-loathing…
Good things too are allowed to end,
EVEN in a culture that got disconnected from seasons.
.
Darling, are you sure it is taking too long?”
With kindness, love and light–because I truly believe they’re our most sacred offering to this world.
Always,
leo