October 10-16

Last night while I was sleeping

I dreamed–blessed illusion!–
a fountain flowed inside my heart.
Water: tell me by what hidden
channel you came to me
with a spring of new life
I never drank?

Last night while I was sleeping
I dreamed–blessed illusion!–
I had a beehive inside my heart,
and from my old bitterness
the gold bees
were contriving white combs
and sweet honey....

(Antonio Machado ~ Border of a Dream: Selected Poems)

from the evening program at the silent meditation retreat

retreat altar

It was the weekend of the Silent Meditation Retreat, the last program of the 2011 season (one work party remains in November). This annual retreat offers participants an opportunity to immerse themselves in the stillness and healing environment of Indralaya. As one participant put it, “Indralaya provides a safe, nourishing environment that feeds the soul and allows the natural flow of communion with people and nature”.

Though the retreat is largely unstructured to provide as much latitude as possible for the participants to follow their own path, it includes optional group meditations in the morning, afternoon, and evening; shared silent meals; and an evening program.

This weekend also saw the departure of fellowship staffer Caitlin McKinney and kitchen intern Jacob Doty. Caitlin had been here for six weeks, and Jake had been with us since early May.

We are especially appreciative of Jake’s contributions on many levels over the past 5 & ½ months. Now he is off to help his family move from one home to another. After that, he has plans to head to Hawaii to live and work at Joel & Michelle Levey’s Kohala Sanctuary on the Big Island for some of the winter. Thank you Caitlin & Jake!

Magical Jacob Doty

An Ill-fated Tree
The mystery around a troubling incident at the Fall Harvest work party deepened this past week. During the work party, we decided to transplant a Sequoia tree that has been in a pot in the garden to an open area between the water storage tanks on the hill above camp.

The volunteer planting the tree left the site for a few minutes to get a shovel and pick. When he returned, he noticed that some edible shaggy mane mushrooms near where the tree was being planted were no longer there. A few minutes later, after planting the tree, he realized that his fanny pack was also missing, along with a camera and two day old iphone. Our best guess was that there may have been someone out foraging mushrooms in the forest who came across the fanny pack and took it.

One consequence is that for the past week we’ve been spending a fair amount of time out along the trails and in the forest. And this past Saturday I was on my way up and over the hill when I detoured to take another look around the area where the tree had been planted. I was quite surprised to find that overnight the tree had been stripped of many of its branches and its bark. It looked like the work of an animal, perhaps driven into something of a frenzy by the sweet taste of the bark or the tree juices beneath.

Later Saturday night, three racoons were observed in trees down near Madrona Point - were they the culprits who tore the tree up? And might they have had something to do with the missing fanny pack? Perhaps more will be revealed with time.

“I don't feel so good”

Off the Map?
Some say that one of the tell tale signs of being in Tir Na Nog, the legendary island of Irish tales that is said to be far far to the west beyond the edge of any map, is that it is a place where the apple trees blossom and bear fruit at one and the same time. The picture below was taken during the fall harvest work party. What stories does this tree of the Indralaya meadow have to tell us about the true location of this place? A place that many say is so different and far from ‘the real world’ beyond?

Has my heart gone to sleep?
Beehives in my dreams,
have you stopped working?
Is the waterwheel of thought dry,
its buckets empty,
spinning and filled with shadow?

No, my heart is not asleep,
It is awake. Awake.
Not asleep or dreaming, it looks
with open bright eyes
at far signals and listens
on the shores of a great silence.

(Antonio Machado ~ Border of a Dream: Selected Poems)