Nine Day Retreat:
Cultivating Naturalness
9.00am Saturday 11th to 4.00pm Sunday 19th.
May 11th-19th 2025
Shoreham, Mornington Peninsula, Victoria

All the great spiritual and mystical teachings ultimately come back to the cultivation of an 'authentic' self, unhindered by both unhelpful entrenched personal habits and coercive messages of others - parents, families, society and the media.

The unending natural world of living beings - plants, animals, insects, fungi - both of the land and sea, seemingly unencumbered, contribute their unique configuration of being to their particular ecological niche. Our own immersion in the natural world is both healing and provides unending inspiration for attuning oneself with the 'natural order of things'. How do we as both individual and collective human beings, find and contribute our own authentic and unique configuration to the unfolding of life on the planet? This nine day retreat will be an opportunity to deepen and further explore these themes.

Awakening, as in natural awakening, is an adverb; an ongoing, continuum experience founded upon deep bodily calm, thus a settled mind, and increased familiarity with resting in a non-dual, first-person, direct experience of a vibrant, vast, spacious, open mandala of being, arising moment-to-moment.

The retreat will provide participants with some simple practices for contacting a way of natural abiding that can be readily incorporated into existing busy lives. These include pausing in the flow of events, centring and grounding oneself in the body, experiencing greater calm and spaciousness of being and thereby, increased clarity of mind. By cultivating these qualities, one's natural state of abiding and interconnectedness with the natural world becomes more apparent.

Retreat provides experienced practioners with space, time and a supportive environment for deepening practice. For those new to meditation, it is the opportunity to build confidence, receive encouragment and ask those questions you always wanted to ask. The daily program will comprise silent individual practice both formal and informal, and group gatherings:
* a morning teaching session on a specific facet of contemplative practice and mindfulness practice: both gentle movement work and group sitting meditation;
* an afternoon session of movement work.

The retreat runs from Saturday May 11 through to Sunday May 19, 2024.
Participants need to self-cater for meals.
Camping is available at the Shoreham Foreshore Reserve (ph: 5989 8325).
For other accommodation options check The Cliffs Retreat (https://www.thecliffsretreat.com) or call Kathryn 0457 203 630.