Celebrating life, creating a circle of intentionality and building a brotherhood of practice: Fire & Ice Retreat

14-16 August 2015 was our 7th Cape Men's Yoga retreat, again at Bodhi Khaya retreat centre in the beautiful Overberg of the Western Cape Province, South Africa.

The retreats each have a theme to them and some tools to help guide the men while on retreat. We draw on traditional yogic teaching and philosophy and add to it Buddhist, Daoist and indigenous concepts which may be useful for people exploring their path in life. Our members include Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, spiritualists, pagans and explorers of various paths.

The aim is to create an inclusive, sharing, co-creative weekend space for people to deepen their practice of yoga, meditation and understanding the mind body relationship. Each retreat is so different in character but each one has been extraordinary in its bonding, sharing and learning. This retreat was characterised by a lot of joy, friendships, uplifting sensations, good food and beautiful moments.

Fire & Ice was built around the themes of Fire as the element related to our effort in spiritual and emotional growth, our commitment to our path, our own creative energy and taking ourselves further than we imagined possible; and Ice as the element of stillness, finding our still point, letting go of suffering and our monkey mind, finding serenity, concentration, insight and wordless turth - being at one with the universe, with God, with the sacred energy behind the created world.

This was supplemented by cards drawn from "the magic bowl" - five possible cards associated with the colours, elements and principles of the Tibetan prayer flags (wind horses); and five cards associated with the deeper five faculties of the mind in the Tibetan Mahayana tradition.

The weekend included yoga in the hatha, power vinyasa, kundalini, partnered yoga, acro-yoga and yin yoga traditions. Meditations included fire meditation, kasina colour meditations, anapanasati (the mindfulness of breath), and an extraordinarily rich teaching and practice of labyrinth walking.

Here are some moments from the final reflection on the weekend.

* I have a busy professional life. I enjoy my work but sometimes it is all consuming and I realise I risk burn out. This weekend really helped me slow things down. Let go of that busy mind and have some time for myself again. I feel amazing, so refreshed. Walking around reconnected me with nature. In one of the meditations I suddenly was a child again. I was standing on the beach in awe of the sea. I was looking up at the mountains and I was filled with joy and excitement. The retreat allowed me to rediscover that sense of wonder, of appreciating what is around me. I also got to spend some quality time with my boyfriend of twelve years. It has been a great weekend.

*I loved many things on the weekend - the new friendships, being so welcome as a newcomer to the group, so much diverse yoga, but I'd like to highlight the labyrinth experience. That stood out for me. I've never walked a labyrinth and Snowy explanation made me really curious. I saw that some people did not want to walk with the whole group. I guess they were concerned about crowding and such. For me it was very different. I realised that the Labyrinth, as an emblem of life itself, is indeed made up of other people. Some are ahead of us, some walk behind, some we cross during the journey. Each one matters and is part of the whole. I appreciated the idea we were revolving around a core - something very important, spiritual, drawing us inwards, something that was inspiring us to continue. Then leaving the centre, that time to integrate what we had learned. It is one thing to pursue a path of spiritual awakening, it is another to make it part of your daily life.

*Part of this weekend was about mourning the part of my earlier life which I am letting go of. I grew up a certain way, and had certain experiences which I need to let go of and move forward with my journey. I don't really have words to describe what happened to me this weekend, but I felt part of the group, able to explore and learn new things.

*I feel I achieved what I set out to achieve on the retreat.

*What I got out of this weekend was that one of the big challenges in life is fear. We can so easily limit our lives by our fears. We can fear growing old, fear losing our job, we can fear making fools of ourselves, being rejected, getting ill. The list is endless. But fear is just a state of mind in the end. By understanding life better, but living it more openly, opening up our hearts to different people and situations, we grow more secure. There is less fear. I am not saying fear does not sometimes have a place, but so often we allow that to hold us back. And there is so much more to experience.

*I was really amazed by the teaching on stillness. I suddenly understood and experienced this in the yin yoga class. We were in the dragon pose, which is really difficult and uncomfortable. I am the kind of person who can deal well with difficulties. When things go wrong I tend to be really calm. But something more happened in this asana. Suddenly I was not suffering, there was no discomfort, I went from experience the difficulty to being able to turn to my still point and just be there quietly, without struggling.

*I do not usually like kundalini yoga. But you know how Duncan teaches it; it always draws me in. I was busy doing that crazy kriya where you push your back backwards then throw your tummy forward. I was in the middle of that and suddenly I was somewhere deep inside me. I could see an intense blue flame across the bottom of my world. My colour for the weekend was blue and that somehow manifested in my fire meditations. We normally focus on the yellow part of the flame but the root of the flame is actually blue. In the kriya there I was deeply connecting with this blue hot flame which inspires my spiritual practice. This weekend did a lot to reaffirm what I am doing in life, to stimulate my confidence in my spiritual path.

*I arrived with my head full of work. There is a lot going on with financials, decisions, new projects. I thought I won't be able to put this down. But when I come on the retreat, there are such kind people, this beautiful space, and I have some time for myself. You know, when I can just make space to think and be, all I want is to do handstands. Does that make me shallow? Lol. I love it. I loved all the different types of yoga this weekend. The yin was challenging.

*Hector's opening yoga was so beautiful and helped set the whole weekend for me. That image of drawing the Zen circle around ourselves - both delineating our own practice space and also connecting with the world. And the still point. This is not a new concept for me but it came out so beautiful that I could go back to this over and over during the weekend. I get so busy, it seems that it is impossible to slow life down. Then I come back to these retreats and things do slow down. I find that stillness, the kind people, the quiet of nature.

*I went into the weekend with some level of anxiety about what to expect, but I did not realise that coming out of retreat would be a more difficult process than going in. It has been a very personal experience, which I am beginning to understand, but not yet able to share. Back to our labyrinth analogy, I entered the weekend not knowing what to expect and left knowing what I had experienced and what I left behind. While in retreat, we were safe within the process of the labyrinth, which was the point of fire and ice, with much internal awakening happening. I enjoyed the process whereby we started with self and then opened up and connected to others and the wider universe. The fire was the collective energy of an amazing bunch of people and the ice was the search within our souls. The yoga & meditation practice brought this all to life.

I came out feeling vulnerable and have dormant memories and feelings surfacing, which I need to assimilate. 

*Did you notice the sound of the wind in the trees? The tree sounds were so loud and yet so soothing. And the rain; I loved listening to rain.

*I lost four people in my life in just a few weeks, including my dear father. It has been a difficult time for me. The retreat was a great place to just let go, be at peace, try some new yoga and meet some wonderful people.