If you’re coming to spend 4 days with Byron Katie via internet video (Katie will be in Switzerland) in a retreat lodge near my house July 11-14, then be sure to sign up soon. We’re nearly full and we’re limited to 24 participants. Click HERE to confirm your spot.
There’s one bedroom still available. Hit reply if you want to reserve it. You can also throw your sleeping bag down on a cot or mattress for only $10 per night. The fee for the event is $165 for the entire 4 days and most of us will commute each day. We’ll watch Katie remotely who will be directing the retreat. We’ll share lunch together (potluck style in the amazing beautiful kitchen).
Can’t wait to hang out with you, and Katie.
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Last night I entered my home after driving straight from California, past the magnificent Mt Shasta, up the passes and down the passes, through flat farm land then into greener and greener northwest and Mt St Helens, equally as magnificent. All these volcanoes where I live, in a long row.
I was driving for 12 hours and 45 minutes.
Oddly, I didn’t feel too uncomfortable, or stiff. I had a few bathroom breaks and two stops for gas.
But inside after arriving, I felt a little like the ground was moving and undulating.
I felt hot and sticky.
And then, I realized I left my favorite pillow in California.
Plus my phone charger.
Arrrrgggghhhhh!!
How could I be such a ditz? What’s WRONG with me? That’s my favorite pillow….waaaaahhhhh.
In googling the phone number of the hotel, and talking with the front desk manager, she reports it is not found.
Nope. Staff says its not seen.
I remember being in the hotel several years ago and leaving my cell phone in a hotel, having to pay $100 fed ex bill for them to “overnight” it back to me which took a week.
And another time, leaving a book with great sentimental value and torn pages on the bedside table, which also was “never found”.
I’m already picturing finding one of those pillows online.
Where did it come from, how can I get another one? Since it was a gift.
Thoughts running fast into the future…acquiring the thing lost.
And those lying, stealing rats at the hotel who cleaned my room!!
My mind repeats the scene of leaving the hotel room quickly because I lost track of the time and suddenly jumped up and raced out the door.
Not exactly detailed oriented here.
Pillow, pillow, pillow. I want my pillow.
But what if this was all OK, in the great scheme of things?
I don’t mean passive OK—people get so upset about this—like standing up for yourself and not being passive means screaming and yelling and feeling horrible and flailing your arms all around and making demands and attacking other people.
What if it was just a simple reality, and I choose to do what I can….
….with JOY?
What if the way consciousness lives itself in this personality that is apparently someone called Grace Bell is pretty spaced out when it comes to time, calendars, technology, and thingies (like pillows and phones and chargers)?
I chuckle, thinking of my kids, especially my oldest who behaves more like me, and someone saying several years ago….
…..”he would forget his head if it wasn’t attached to his body”.
And the lightness of that, the appeal.
Who would you be without the belief you have to have it right, orderly, you must “keep” all these items near you, or that you even own them at all?
What if everything was lost, burned up, gone?
Isn’t that what I’ve always been interested in anyway?
“This burning is itself, grace. I am very happy for you in this burning. Mind cannot help. Mind wants to have a little check list of what’s going on. I need to do ‘this’…Keep your hands together in this fire. Something is taking care of everything in this fire. It is purifying everything…This fire is burning fiercely, but it WILL NOT BURN YOU. It will burn what you are not. Burn on.” ~ Mooji
Even in this moment of leaving something behind I loved, as simple as a pillow, I see it is not required.
And it doesn’t mean I don’t find another one, just like it.
It also doesn’t mean that next time I won’t choose to leave my favorite things behind for safe-keeping, write a strong letter to the management.
I call and talk to the head of hotel staff to ask them to question everyone who cleaned the room, and request she call me back tomorrow with an update.
There is such great freedom in being with this experience without fury, with clarity and love.
And probably more effective too, all around.
Laughing, I think about bringing something next time on purpose to leave behind….a little gift for the housekeeping staff like a blanket, a bag of yummy foods, some books.