post-workshop reflections on noisy meditations, painting, and sleeping 12 hours straight!

Fiins Place, Glasgow, Creative Regenerarion workshop, May 10th

Last Saturday the sun was out in Glasgow and we celebrated on the grass outside Finns Place with an afternoon of Creative Regeneration. It was meant to be inside but there was a sudden change of plan, in the spirit of flexibility, non-intention and surprise that infuses CR. It was a donate-what-you-can relaxed occasion, everyone free to wander.

Still, however, my mind managed to find a way to judge. It's a cliche that you teach what you need to learn, and cliches are cliches for a reason. The meditation took place next to a road which has always, in the context of roads, seemed very quiet to me, but in the context of meditation seemed extremely noisy, and I wondered if my voice was carrying at all - I have a voice which carries but that's not normally the one I use for soft, gentle meditations! I was having more trouble than usual bringing my attention back to the breath. This is of course the whole point of the practice of meditation, to keep your seat in the midst of disturbance, to hold to the thread of aliveness, to be aware of what's happening around you as it is, noticing attachment, avoidance and confusion, and returning. The mind did find a way, though, to fleetingly convince me I should be controlling the environment, stopping the traffic and providing everyone with peace.

What is peace though? Is it absolute silence, or is it the ability to stay present, without resisting, and let things be?

I was aware I was giving less detailed instructions than usual. I wasn't in teacher-mode. I wasn't giving inspiration. I wasn't giving explanations. I was making conditions for things to happen. While that was the point, my mind was not entirely comfortable. In the meantime, people got down close to the ground, as close as they could given their bodily states, and they were pouring paint on the paper, and they were listening for the next step, and going for the next colour, and moving it with their hands, with the brush, and there was a kind of silence that descended, I didn't hear the traffic anymore. I heard some laughter, some birdsong, some squirting paint noises. Life was doing itelf.

There were no grand conclusions. The closing meditation was quieter. And then the feedback came in the next day. How deeply relaxing it had been. What an antidote to the madness the world has become. How surprisingly easy it had been to not be preoccupied with difficult situations in their life for those few hours. How gleeful their inner five year old had been! And a couple of people mentioned a wave of deep tiredness, with one person sleeping afterwards for an unaccustomed 12 hours straight!

This is what happens when the nervous system gets the chance to relax, to move into rest, and connect and play states, when feelings are allowed to arise but there's no need to delve into them and analyse or judge or try or perform in any way. There's a big sigh, and as the tireness hits, the body switches off a lot of energy-consuming functions so regeneration can happen. The regeneration of the cells that you can't do on purpose, but which happens when you're asleep. The way the plants grow.

It was in retrospect, just as it needed to be, and the fresh air was a really important part of it all. If you fancy a longer CR experience, outside up a beautiful hill where there are no cars to be heard and no light pollution in the sky, check out the Creative Regeneration Retreat in July at the terrealuma healing refuge in Poland. There are some spaces!