June 9 & 10. Friday and Saturday.

Yoga Mark began the day with Yoga on the roof. Beautiful up there in the morning overlooking the mountains. Wonderful way to start the day. Mark ran it both days, in fact, but for some reason I thought he was skipping a day, so I missed Yoga on Saturday. Instead I decided to walk/run up to the lighthouse and back. We then met for the training day.

On Friday we spent a day longer than I’d anticipated understanding what the personal is and why it subtly and insidiously has such a grip on us. The group itself went in and out of personal thinking themselves, and we could watch the ebb and flow of the feeling in the group, accordingly. Mostly, everyone seemed in a good feeling. This was helped immeasurably by the structure of the retreat, as again most of us spent the afternoon at the beach. I took a dip in the Mediterranean; the sea water felt great.

On the way to the beach that day, Richard, Holly and I stopped for some gelato and had a really lovely conversation. Then Friday night, after our evening session I went to dinner with Gabriela in a restaurant by the sea with the gorgeous full moon rising over the still-blue sea. We were supposed to be planning, and we did—at little. Delightful.

Then Lise led us through one of her glorious singing workshops. This time I took the plunge and sang a wonderful song a friend of mine wrote called Children So Long. I was amazed that I had felt so confident singing it on the beach in Florida away from everyone, but as soon as I got up to sing in front of the group, the personal crept in and I got really nervous. But I made it through, with Lise’s assistance. She is so good at what she does; everyone left Lise’s session feeling wonderful.

The next morning in the training retreat came my favorite part of the retreat thus far, as we talked about insights that people had, which lead to a spectacular with a beautiful feeling.

After the break we talked about what transcending means, and again didn’t get as far as I would have liked. During the very long afternoon break I talked with one of the participants who needed extra help, then we joined the others on the beach, where I took a long swim. How great is this!

Then we all went out to a new Japanese Restaurant and I completely pigged out, and as I write this I am terribly full. As of this moment I am also baffled about what to do tomorrow. Gab and I figure we’ll start with their insights again tomorrow morning and hope something comes to us, because I’m not sure that what I had planned earlier is still relevant.