A journey into meditation

The first event in April was the three day course The Essence of Meditation: an invitation to welcome your true nature. On the day of arrival it is important to have the time to settle in, discover the different corners of the house where you can sit with a tea and relax. Exploring the garden and its sunny spots. It being a Thursday, the participants of the course enjoyed a live HarpMood in an online connection with Yoginâm and the weekly Gathering in Spain. A very valuable contribution in a process of Letting Go to welcome your true nature.

The next morning, after a powerful Asha Meditation with drum, different meditation tools were explored, together with their benefits, and the deeper reasons for practice—far beyond personal gain.

Then it was full immersion. No more explanations—just meditation. Mornings followed a more intense rhythm together, while afternoons allowed space for contemplation and walks in nature.

Everyone departed feeling recharged, inspired, and with a renewed commitment to weaving meditation into daily life. Supported by sunny days, it was a profound and beautiful retreat.

 

 

Continuing the journey: The Weekend of Silence

A few days after the course, the journey into meditation continued with the Weekend of Silence. The first meditation of this weekend was marked by a strong steady focus and a feeling of dedication, that set the tone for the weekend to come. The meditations allowed each one the space to digest and rearrange conscious and unconscious impulses. The silence, deepening this personal process, provided at the same time the possibility to keep connected with the group as a whole. The positive tone that seemed to accompany the steady focus emerged at the end when the silence ended and the group happily shared their experience and wrote a note of thanks on the quilt.

 

Meditation in Motion: renewing the pond

Parallel to these journeys in meditation there was another activity in which a strong focus was held. As you can read in Katrin’s contribution below, it was a carefully planned process, involving encounters with an abundance of wildlife and other surprises:

Renewing the pond

It started more than 2 years ago. You also could say, more than 20 years ago when the pond was built. With creating comes responsibility, as we experience daily with this pond. Keeping the fishes and their environment healthy asks for actions, like discouraging ducks to stay or refilling it with water. The latter was a frequent happening the last years and so the idea of renewing the pond lining came up. Initially this felt as a too big a challenge for us so we mainly discussed possibilities.

Until somewhere in January. While looking out the kitchen window we felt that it was time. Time to start this adventure. So, we sought permission, blessing and insights from Yoginâm, set a date and started the preparations. April will be the month!

 

Together with Louise and Annebeth I made a list of things and actions involved with this project. We had a lot of talks beforehand. We made appointments to meet and discuss the project or exchanged thoughts and ideas while being busy in the kitchen or crossing paths in the garden. Many ideas came up and were reflected on. Some of them stayed, others ‘left’ after some considerations. For me it kept feeling a huge challenge, being responsible for the coordination and decisions of this project. On the other hand, in attunement things work smooth and easy and I got carried through, recognizing time after time that it was not ´me´ being in charge.

And then, April knocked on the door. So off I went, to Amonines for 10 days. I felt nervous and overwhelmed. Fortunately, Annebeth already did a lot of manual labor by dismantling the waterfall and the sides of the pond and there was no way back. We set up ‘the swimming pool’ for the fish, started pumping water and digging to take the old lining out. Conny, who volunteered for a few days, helped with the physical work like taking out mud and rocks. Our main worry was getting the fishes out alive. But how to do that? The water was troubled and we couldn’t see a thing, so I just started by going through it with a net. We were quite surprised that it was the smallest ones, who was the easiest to catch. They also seemed relaxed with it, while the big ones hided and got really upset. Staying calm and connected helped and so I took the time to transfer them all to ‘the swimming pool’. We also found larvae of dragonflies, salamanders, some of them beautifully blue with orange bellies, and frogs.

 

We finished emptying the pond perfectly in time for John, who arrived on Saturday morning, to take the measurements for the new lining. The arrangement to place it a few days later gave a bit of rest, at least physically – needed at that moment. We went shopping for new plants and attributes. We took our time and when we did so, we heard that we were 1 out of 1000, taking the time to carefully select the right plants. It seems that haste has taken over the last couple of years. Once again, we felt blessed being able to live and rely on a place like Amonines, carried by Yoginâm.

In spite of an appearing rainfall, we could finish placing the lining and putting back the fish just before I had to leave for the Netherlands. While there is still work to do like digging in the sides, placing back plants and rebuilding the waterfall, it felt like a good job done. For now, what remains is finding time to go back and help finish the project, so the ecosystem will get rest and opportunity to recover and the esthetics of the pond to become restored, the essential outcome at the end that we are looking forward to.