Mindfully Exploring Drawing and Poetry in Helmsley Walled Garden

 

Here is a lovely opportunity to give yourself a treat and enjoy the beauty of Helmsley Walled Garden (YO62 5AH) from a different perspective, exploring it through drawing or poetry. Whether you are experienced in these areas of drawing, poetry and mindfulness, or brand new and slightly terrified, this retreat has a lot to offer you.

This 2-day non-residential retreat offers an opportunity to experience drawing and poetry supported by mindfulness.  Please note you can book for either one day (Saturday) or for both days.

Day Retreat Overview

Helmsley Walled Garden provides a superb setting for exploring our relationship with nature through words and images. On each of these two days we can spend time discovering a new way of creating, whether this is through drawing or poetry, by using mindfulness as the foundation.

Each day includes gentle mindfulness practices that will enable and support your drawing or writing, as well as refreshments and lunch and entry to the Walled Garden.

This provides an ideal opportunity to:

• Leave behind the hustle and bustle of daily life and set aside some time to refresh yourself through the creative pursuits of drawing and/or poetry.
• Tune into what feels right for you 
• Explore the benefits of mindfulness

Who Should Attend

This event is suitable for anyone who is interested in combining the creative practices of drawing and/or poetry with mindfulness. Tuition will be provided in mindfulness as well as the craft skills of drawing and poetry. Each day will happily accommodate those who practice regularly as well as those new to drawing, poetry or mindfulness. Beginners and the terrified are all welcome!

The Venue

This event will be held at Helmsley Walled Garden, Cleveland Way, Helmsley, York YO62 5AH.

See eventbrite https://mindfullyandcreativelyinhwg.eventbrite.co.uk for more details

Silence

Today is world book day, and as I haven't posted for a while this is a good opportunity to talk about Thay's latest book, Silence. Even the title really intrigues me. I love silence! The full title is Silence: the power of quiet in a world full of noise. Something that is very much needed. I think we should encourage people to turn off the radios and tvs and computers and phones more often and notice silence instead of ignoring it, or trying to cover it up. Silence can be very powerful, as it allows the heart to be heard. I have often written about silence in my poems but here is one I don't think I have posted before.

Silence is more eloquent

No more words
the silence is more eloquent.

The deep rest in conversation
between one comment and the next
lets the words settle and resonate,
lets the beating heart be heard,
opens up the space in which
being replaces doing,
acceptance and contentment
replace rushing and getting things done.

No more words
the silence is more eloquent.

The heart yearns to be heard.
When internal and external
words are silenced
the heart is set free
like a caged bird learning how to fly.


No more words
the silence is more eloquent.
2 June 2013

And Thay's book is available soon, with this beautiful quote, inner silence does not require external silence. You can get it from here in the UK
http://www.wisdom-books.com/ProductDetail.asp?PID=27711

The ocean of bliss

How long will we spend
paddling in the shallows
before we are prepared
to risk diving deep?

The ocean of bliss
calls constantly to us
ever-present
waiting
watching
beckoning.

The proliferation of
seashells and soft, soft sand
is beguiling to a mind
caught up with noise.

Only in the depths
beneath the turbulent and
constantly moving sea
will we find
the centre
that is ever still.

© 20 June 08

What are you choosing to look at?

Yesterday as I drove out of my village I noticed lots of litter on one side of the road. There seems to be a lot around at the moment, possibly because of the wind. On the other side was a bank of snowdrops. It became a perfect analogy for me of living mindfully and noticing what we notice, as well as what the mind says about it.
Looking at the litter there is a lot of mental activity and a lot of judgement about people who leave the litter, people who aren't cleaning it up etc.
Looking at the snowdrops the mind is quiet, just taking in the beautiful scene and enjoying it.
We can make a definite choice not only about what we see but also how we receive it, and notice whether it brings the mind to stillness or increases the mental activity.
What are you choosing to look at today?

Waiting

On a retreat last week we spoke about waiting at the beginning of meditation. Waiting in terms of not doing anything but just resting with the breath and seeing what happen. I found it a really useful and helpful means of moving into meditation and now back home it reminds me of Shamatha, a Buddhist type of meditation, usually translated as stopping and calming and often a precursor to Vipashyana, looking deeply or insight. It's not a case of waiting for anything, as that seems to imply one is lacking something but just waiting, something we can find very hard to do in a fast-moving, driven society.
I have written a couple of poems about waiting which I share with you here.

Where is the waiting?

In the depths of sinking
at the end of each out-breath,
in the peak of rising
at the end of each in-breath,
in the undulating space
between in-breath and out-breath,
in the seemingly ever-growing stillness
as the mind falls quiet,
in the oneness that emanates
from this community of lovers,
in the meditating heart.
© 16 Feb 15

And what does it mean to wait?

To rest

to be completely at peace

ready

empty

ready to receive

ready to hear.

Taking the force and push

out of actions

letting things unfold

in their own way.

Stopping running, planning 

looking forward.

And what does it mean to wait?

being here now

available

making friends with the present moment

ready to receive

ready to hear

the whisperings of the heart.

© 17 Feb 15

What if ...

What if
we started living
as if we were dying?

Not in despair or hopelessness
but with a childlike delight
of savouring each moment
as if it will never come again
because one day, it won’t.

What if
we started living
as if we were dying?

Tasting a snowflake
meeting the fly crawling across my book
jumping in puddles
delighting in rainbows
and never forgetting to say
‘I love you’
while the opportunity is here.

One day
all this will be gone.
And will it be gone
before we’ve even experienced it?

Will we meet death
realising
we have sleepwalked though life
with our eyes and ears closed
to its miracles?

Will we meet death
as a welcome friend
whose warm embrace
is comforting?

Will we meet death
willingly
as at the end of a long day
when we have given
all we could give
and tiredness is a good sign
of running on empty?

Let’s start living
as if we were dying.

© 2 Feb 15

What is emptiness?

‘I am standing water,
teach me how to flow’*.

Emptiness is a clear jar
full of possibilities
unsullied by swirling thoughts,
notions and ideas.

Emptiness is a still lake
undisturbed by stirrings
in its depth, not
‘muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty’**
but calm, unruffled, untouched
by mundane cares of the world.

Emptiness is fullness,
full of infinite space
not bound by time or restrictions.
Full of light
that diminishes shadows.

Emptiness is a quiet mind
unaffected by the roller-coaster
turbulence of emotions and
attention-grabbing thoughts.

Emptiness is putting down ‘me’
and all the baggage that accompanies it.

Emptiness is waking up to ‘I’
and all the glorious uncertainty that entails.

Emptiness is a still heart.

* adapted from Shakespeare
** Shakespeare

© 1 Feb 15