Mindfulness Retreats

Drawing by Kirstin Noelle

We spend a long time wishing we were elsewhere and otherwise. 

-Robert Farrar Capon

The aim of the Mindfulness retreat is to explore ways to get to the “more” our souls yearn for. For us, the key lies in living with awareness or to coin the popular term; to live mindfully.

Simply put this means to not live on “auto pilot” or as if you are sleepwalking. To become fully alive and to experience the present moment to the full. More than that: To experience the moment without judging it. Allowing it to be simply what it is. This sounds nonsensical to the rational, modern brain but it is paramount if it is a meaningful life you’re after.

To live with such awareness from moment to moment is possible through the mindful implementation of elements as natural as breathing and silence. After all, we are equipped with a body with senses and a respiratory system with which to experience, stay alive and savour the world and our environment.

Why live mindfully?

The very real danger exists that Mindfulness is taken to be some form of transcendental and ephemeral practise that makes one lose contact with reality, scorn the body and pay no heed to the created world. Life, for the most, is hard and the realities we are faced with every day leave little room for yet another airy-fairy catchphrase that sounds a lot like opting out and spending the rest of your life sitting zazen on a pillow high up in the mountains. In real life, we think, someone has to feed the dogs, pay the bills, and keep car and country in running order. If mindfulness cannot in some way enhance my life as it currently is, I have no use for it.

Yet we yearn for something real that will take away the uneasiness that we are missing out on something. Exactly what we don’t know. Maybe meaning, the feeling that our lives matter. We feel adrift and without any spiritual foundation. The traditional “Sunday religion” is not working for us.

It is clear when we listen to the mystics of most spiritual disciplines that the return to deeper meaning and quality of life lies in something very simple: The living with awareness, through our bodies and senses, of our life’s moments and days. Please read this again carefully. It is the exact opposite to withdrawing from life, your body or this world.

To put it plainly: we need to grasp that our lives, messy or mundane as it may be, in the individual bodies that we inhabit, is the place where holiness happens, if we can only be truly present as it happens. Mostly we are somewhere else. Mindfulness doesn’t take you “out there”, it brings you right here. Right now. Where you notice the incredible colour of beetroot juice in the stain you are trying to rub out of your very best tablecloth. Where you actually taste the water you are drinking, really notice the bright specks in your cat’s eyes and become aware of the presence a honeybee possesses as it buzzes by. Where you experience pain and heartbreak and struggle with your dragons.

Learning to be present to all the moments and emotions of your life, makes them all harvest, useful in more ways than we can fathom, if we allow them to.

By implementing the basic elements of Mindfulness in everyday life, all aspects of life are touched. Your body, through the senses, becomes a tuning fork. There is a feeling of greater involvement in your own life, a deeper connection with Someone or Something benevolent and expansive, actively and visibly involved in your life. This new perspective leads to a feeling of aliveness and inter-connectedness to all things. Life becomes an adventure. The “more” we yearned for is now a reality.

Over the course of the weekend retreat, the elements of mindful living is conveyed and by applying these elements in practical sessions the foundation is laid for living a mindful life.The retreat is presented in Afrikaans and English according to need and takes place in a small group context at our intimate retreat centre, The Restory, in the foothills of the Drakensberg near Wakkerstroom. 

These guided retreats are facilitated by George en Matilda Angus in a small group context. Find more information about us at Meet us.

For  retreat dates please go to Retreat Calendar
For Rates and Availability go to Rates and Contact details
Venue: Find us at Accommodation and Whereabouts