In Total Alignment


**Please don't forget:
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and help out a cause VERY near and dear to my heart.  
Find out more here.**
(Please forgive the formatting of this post.  It isn't saving my changes and I'd rather get the message out to you than postpone this for days while I figure out what isn't technically working.)

How does one begin to describe experiences that arise from the spirit and speak only to the heart?  Where are the words to communicate such occurrences?

Is there a thinking without the word? When the mind is not cluttered up with words, then thinking is not thinking as we know; but it is an activity without the word, without the symbol; therefore it has no frontier;the word is the frontier.


The word creates the limitation, the boundary. And a mind that is not functioning in words, has no limitation; it has no frontiers; it is not bound. Take the word love and see what it awakens in you, watch yourself; the moment I mention that word, you are beginning to smile and you sit up, you feel. So the word love awakens all kinds of ideas, all kinds of divisions such as carnal, spiritual, profane, infinite, and all the rest of it. But find out what love is. Surely, sir, to find out what love is the mind must be free of that word and the significance of that word.

 J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

I've returned from 4 days at Total Alignment, the retreat led by Connie Hozvicka of Dirty Footprints Studio.  I've returned from a vacation that followed that, a blissful few days with my husband in Arizona where we spent our first days away from our children since they have been born (over 7 years ago).  I've returned, but in many ways what happened over that past week dissolved any "I" and any possibility of "return".
We spent time hiking, painting, enjoying delicious food, and sinking into yoga.  That is the outside structure of it all.  What went on beneath that is where the words start to fail.

Fourteen women total.  Connie's husband, the amazing chef and photographer Hansel, did a great majority of the cooking.  Opal, a yogic soul I am blessed to now know, did a tremendous job helping coordinate all of the ins and outs.  Within all of that, we were free to navigate our own colors, our own questions, explore our own reasons for being there and the answers that arose.
I feel as though there is so much to share -- and in the process of typing this post, I've written and deleted countless stories.  
Part of me wants to convince you to experience this, or something like this.  To feel this depth of connection with other beings, to experience this pure Vitality.  But I'm not going to to try.
Why?  
Because anything of true value that I have to share with you cannot come through in a blog post.  It will come through in the way I live my life, the stories I share from those experiences, the art that arises.  I have been deeply inspired, given renewed breath, offered perspectives into life I would not have been blessed with otherwise. 

My being was transformed.  It honestly was that dramatic - nothing more, nothing less.  

I will openly share as much as I can.  Your personal peace and depth of being is up to you to discover beyond that.  I cannot encourage you strongly enough to pursue it.
The women with whom I shared this experience easily found a place in my heart.  Women I'd never met in person I sat with in pure comfort, chatting as if we'd known each other for years.  In some ways, what we've shared through the Fearless Painting process has brought us closer than relationships I have in person where the weather and work are the primary topics of conversation.  Because mine is just one perspective, I encourage you to read of their experiences.
(I have included links to any that have blogs / websites below. Some have written about the retreat more than once, so I just included a link to their general site.  Trust me - anything else they have written is worth reading as well!)
Lauren Strach
Jennifer Delahoussaye Hunteman
Opal Keen
I want to write so much more.  But at this point, words only get in the way.
Namaste.
Lisa Wilson10 Comments