Why It's Important To Retreat Into The Wilderness

Concrete foundations may feel stable and secure but they shield us from our true nature. I remember  Adnan Sarhan, a Sufi Master I used to study with wrote about the significance of how a blade of grass will breakthrough cement to find the sun.  I thought I had a real appreciation for his words back then.  However, I spent weeks on his land in New Mexico and when I came home I made a point to walk outside everyday. I was connecting to nature, so I didn't have the deeper understanding that I have today.

Thanks to Alice Franklin.  She not only got me meditating again five or six years ago, this past weekend she took a group of us on our first retreat into the mountains.  It was a big reminder that connecting with nature is key to our well-being. Most of my generation grew up outdoors.  My siblings and I were outside so long it was tough for my mom to get us inside for dinner.  

My favorite pastime was playing house in the roots of the magnolia trees.  I created elaborate houses and played uninterrupted by myself for hours on end. With leaves and sticks I made beds, acorn shells became bowls, other natural treasures made the rest of my playhouse... and rocks were my people. Yes, I had a store-bought doll house, but the one outside was much more magical.  

Alice brought that back for me in a way I will never forget. Just two hours away from Atlanta, my meditation family and I were able to escape into a breathtaking wonderland where we could unplug and reconnect with the sun and the rain, the rocks and the trees, the leaves and the moss, the streams and the    creatures that live in and around it; and of course the mountains that stand as a testament to the power of  it all.

I've committed so many years of study to yoga, now I have to question: How can we really understand the yoga asana, Tadasana without experiencing the power of a mountain?  How can we understand Vrksasana without experiencing the energetic flow of a tree? There are so many yoga poses named after animals.  How can we claim to practice yoga asana without understanding the animals these poses are mimicking? I believe my learning has to expand outside the studio, off my mat and onto the natural ground from which yoga developed. While writing this blog, I discovered an interesting article: Yoga and Archetypes you might enjoy reading.  

Get away for 20 minutes, an hour, or a weekend. Go to the mountains or the woods whenever you can.  I'm not saying anything you haven't heard before. Commune with nature….La le la kumbaya.  I know, I know.  I'd be rolling my eyes too. Except for the fact, I just came back from an amazing retreat with a lot of gratitude.  I feel like that blade of grass that broke through to see the sun.  Now I know I have been covered with cement far too long.

Thanks Alice.  What a great gift you are. 

Gaudi, Piccasso, and all who followed their passion.

Almost everyone has heard of Gaudi and Picasso, but have you heard about Jordi Bonet Armengol or Maqbool Fida Husain?

Sagrada Familia

Armengol is the son of one of Gaudi's long-standing aides. He's the guy who has made sure that Gaudi's work continues on the Sagrada Familia, a neo-Gothic cathedral begun in 1882 [Gaudi actually took over the project a year later] set in an ordinary neighborhood in Barcelona.

Gaudi died in 1926. The cathedral's construction continues with unbelievable dedication to Gaudi's vision with many great artists in their own right behind it all. And it won't be finished until 2026 or 2028 - almost 150 years after the project started.

Maqbool Fida Husain 
Mahãbhãrata Project 
Ganga Jamuna (Mahãbhãrata 12) 
1971 -Oil on canvas 
The Chester and Davida Herwitz Collection. 

Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts

MF Husain is one of the many artists around the world whose art has won much acclaim for its Picasso inspired overtones. Husain was deeply influenced by "Guernica" (1937) and its depiction
of the basest level of war.



The work that put him on the world's easel, "Mahabharata Project, Ganga Jamuna" is part of a series of 27 paintings made in 1971 for the São Paulo Bienal.

Interestingly, Picasso was also invited to exhibit alongside Husain. Husain's work is considered a homage to Picasso.  Based on the epic poem, Mahabharata, which is ten times longer than Homer's Iliad and the Odessey.  The poem is an arguably unrivaled heroic tale of the human predicament with its moral and ethical problems.

Husain, though very controversial in India during his lifetime [at one point Shiv Sena (Army of Shiva) party leader Bhagwan Goel offered a half-million rupee reward if someone would cut off one of Husain's arms] has become known as "India's Picasso".

Barcelona's Picasso Museum with its unique displays of Picasso's indefatigable explorations of a single subject along with a temporary exhibit titled 'Post-Picasso: Contemporary Reactions', curated by Michael FitzGerald with its superb depiction of the Post-Picasso effects on contemporary art worldwide

Minuscule View of Interior La Sagrada Familia

Gaudi Hanging Model
with Sandbags & String

---along with the momentous La Sagrada Familia and its Museum of Gaudi's multifaceted imagination which delved deeply into everything from innovative hanging models based on the theory of reversion of the catenary
to flourishes in the moulding or single candelabra, along with live present-day workers modeling the next stage of Gaudi's vision - I was altered. Altered by the dedication ---the internal need to explore, experiment, and create with little regard for public recognition or marketability.







In our Instagram-cut-and-paste world, while there will be and have been inspired works to come from it, it makes you wonder if we've lost something very important. The MEAM Gallery in Barcelona apparently believes we have as stated on placards at each level of the Gallery.

I hope not.