Your retreat island in the pre-Christmas stress of December: spend a weekend in silence Take a deep breath and collect yourself amid the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season. In this retreat, we want to focus on the essentials, cultivate gratitude and loving kindness, and get in the mood for the upcoming holidays. We will also use the retreat as an opportunity to look back on the past year and consciously shape the transition into the new year. What to expect We will begin at 4:30 p.m. on the day of arrival. After dinner together, we will clarify everything important in the evening so that you can safely sink into silence and completely into yourself.
Until the morning of the day of departure, we will envelop ourselves in noble silence and focus entirely on introspection. Looking inward. Listening. After lunch, there will still be room for exchange and community.
Basically, you can expect a medium-intensity meditation practice that is also well suited for people with little experience: we sit for a maximum of about 25 minutes at a time and about 4-5 times a day, together in silence, sometimes as guided meditation. The meditation practice is inspired by Buddhist practices and combines mindful awareness, heart qualities, and concentration of the mind.
In addition to the meditation practice, we practice yoga – as a gentle physical balance and preparation for sitting. The focus is on passive Yin Yoga, supplemented by calm, mindfully performed Hatha Yoga exercises. The practice is deliberately slow and inward-focused; dynamic or performance-oriented forms of yoga are not part of the guided program. Individual practice is welcome outside of group times. The program is complemented by various contemplative elements (e.g., short keynote speeches, stories and food for thought, contemplative exercises, journaling, group walks), the specific form of which varies from retreat to retreat and is inspired by the topics I am currently exploring in my own philosophical practice and studies. At the end of each retreat, there is a practice to integrate what has been experienced. About Regina – your course leader: Ever since I first became fascinated by the strange phenomenon of consciousness around 30 years ago, I have been engaged with philosophy, psychology, meditation, yoga, and all such things. It is the search for truth and for answers to the ultimate questions of human existence that has always driven me: I want to explore and understand consciousness, life, and being human in its depth.
Since 2020, I have been creating spaces for experience with great joy and dedication, spaces that are inspired by this search and in which people can move from doing to being, find peace, encounter and question themselves, and thus sharpen, increase, shape, and expand their consciousness in order to ultimately lead a more joyful and peaceful life. I hope to contribute to a more peaceful, conciliatory, and humane world. Here is what a former participant said about my retreats: The weekend in silence was a highlight of my year, and I hope the effects will linger for a long time to come. Despite the usual Christmas stress, I am already approaching many things a little differently, meditating every day and writing in my journal in the evenings. It was such a wonderful weekend that I would love to experience it again in the future, and how lucky we were with the group! Thank you again for your fantastic introduction to silence, Yin Yoga, and so much more. ---- Marisca M.