The July Retreat Season Begins with Cultivating Gratitude

The July Retreat Season Begins with Cultivating Gratitude

Housatonic River

 

Our July retreat season is underway and what a pleasure it is to gather together in person with our far-flung community at the Trinity Conference Center in beautiful West Cornwall, Connecticut!  Our first retreat, which was an open retreat, focused on cultivating gratitude, and our second retreat, which is happening now, is for our seventh cohort of rabbis.  Here are a few highlights of the retreat on gratitude:

  • An early morning walk by the Housatonic River with banks of orange lilies, sightings of herons and a beaver waddling between the rocks at the river edge.
  • Observing how the process of asking questions about the Torah portion – and not answering them – transformed a strange fairy tale with a talking donkey and things happening in threes into profound insights about experiencing Divine guidance and skillful responses to obstacles and ambivalence.
  • Watching a whole roomful of people from a wide range of Jewish backgrounds open their hearts in song.
  • Exploring real obstacles to gratitude, such as being uncomfortable with receiving from others or confronting challenging situations, and how we and Jews in ages past have tried to overcome these obstacles.Housatonic River
  • Savoring trout that was caught that same morning, along with cold mint pea soup, fresh local tomatoes with pesto, salad with raspberries and walnuts, seitan with a ginger sauce, roasted carrots and “white chocolate blackberry dream” (which is exactly what it sounds like).
  • Welcoming our beloved Shabbat with radiance and joy.
  • Learning that the Hebrew work for “thanking” (lehodot) can also mean “acknowledging” and practicing saying “thank you” or “Yes, this too” to whatever arises, through prayer, yoga, meditation and traditional texts.
  • Using freshly picked rosemary, thyme and sage as the spices for Havdallah.

If you were at this retreat (or if you have been at other retreats at Trinity), what have been some of your highlights?

Solid as a Rock

Solid as a Rock

I just returned from vacation, where I went hiking from village to village in the Atlas Mountains.  The Atlas Mountains are very steep and rugged, but people have lived there for as long as anyone can remember.  The villages cling to the sides of narrow valleys in neat, terraced rows of mud and stone houses, walnut and cherry orchards and small plots of barley and peas.  The trails between the villages are narrow and rocky, created by goats and shepherds over centuries.

As we walked along these ageless paths, I found myself remembering a story I heard as a child, one of those stories that kept me awake wondering at night.  There is a huge mountain a mile high.  Once every hundred years, an eagle flies low over the mountain and brushes off one grain of sand from the top with the tip of its wing.  Think of how long it would take to wear away the entire mountain!  And yet, that is only the first second of infinity.

We often think of mountains as the symbol of solidness and durability.  One of the teachings of mindfulness, however, is the experience of impermanence, as we observe how the breath moves in and out, how sensation changes, how thoughts arise and pass.  And as we hiked, I was struck by how the mountains too are changing all the time due to the rivers washing down rocks and sand, the ice and snow carving the stone, the huge boulders that fall down to the valleys, the footsteps of hundreds of people and animals pressing down, even the alpine flowers that push up through the rocks.  These mountains are in fact wearing slowly down.  It is just a matter of time and scale.

Of course, if I stop to think about it, I know in my head that not even the mountains are exempt from the law of change.  But to look up the valley and experience that fact took me aback for a moment.  Then I thought of the blessing for seeing tall and lofty mountains:  Blessed are You, God, who performs the work of creation.  Who continues to perform, over long and short periods of time.

flowers in rocks

And I realized again: It is such a blessing to be small and ephemeral, to see the beauty of the world inside us and around us, to glimpse the preciousness of this life, its fragility and glory, and to share it with joy with those around us.