onehouse

These adventures in solitude never done...

I sent this off to someone today who I know understands what it means to walk away and then actually recover from something you thought was so much of you. Sometimes I feel like the great crowd of witnesses is singing this to some of us who are wondering and wandering around unlost in the wilderness:

Balancing on
One wounded wing
Circling the edge
Of the neverending
The best of the vanished marvels have gathered inside your door

More than begin
But less than forget
But spirits born
From the not happened yet
Gathering there
To pay off a debt brought back from the wars

We thought we lost you
We thought we lost you
We thought we lost you
Welcome back

Kingsfold Retreat & Renewal Centre

I have mentioned the Kingsfold Retreat Centre on this blog before. It is one of the most beautiful places you will come across, situated on the Ghost River and face to face with the Rocky Mountains. I have usually stayed in the lodge but this time my friend did a fasting retreat in The Hideaway - a treehouse which is just what is sounds like.

If you are ever in the neighborhood, this place could be good for what ails you.

Basic Human Aloneness

Our culture has become most sophisticated in the avoidance of pain, not only our physical pain but our emotional and mental pain as well. We not only bury our dead as if they were still alive, but we also bury our pains as if they were not really there. We have become so used to this state of anesthesia, that we panic when there is nothing or nobody left to distract us. When we have no project to finish, no friend to visit, no book to read, no television to watch, no record to play, and when we are left all alone by ourselves we are brought so close to the revelation of our basic human aloneness and are so afraid of experiencing an all-pervasive sense of loneliness that we will do anything to get busy again and continue the game which makes us believe that everything is fine after all...

Henri Nouwen