This was an odd winter. Usually I reel for awhile and then I settle into stillness. This winter I kept reeling. After awhile I just excepted my thoughts as something I need to look at and deal with. Everyday I wrote about what I had discovered in my reeling and I started to remember big events in my life that I had forgotten.
It seemed like a waste of a winter, just reliving the past, but I feel like I have grown from the experience. That’s the thing about not having any distractions like movies or Internet, you have to deal with you.
So what I would do is go back to the past, in my mind, and fix stuff. And If I couldn’t figure out a way to fix it in the past, I would think about ways that I could fix things now.
Because I feel strongly that if you are going to hole away in cabin all by yourself for 6 months, you have to have rules, these were the things I made myself do everyday:
- Yoga
- Meditation
- Walking or spending at least 30 minutes a day outside
- Bathe
- Brush teeth
- Write
- Refrain from eating from after noon to dawn the following day
- Chores (chopping wood, melting snow, etc.)
- Clean my cabin
For inspiration I had:
- Autobiography of a Yogi
- The Peace Pilgrim–in her own words
- Destiny of Souls and Journey of Souls
- an audio-book called, “50 Spiritual Classics”
Often I listened to music that I had stored on my computer. Sometimes I would pick out 3 songs and listen to them over and over. Eventually I would come to believe that they were the most beautiful songs ever written. Then one day I would change what three songs I was listening to. I felt they helped me to think.
Somehow, that would fill my day….that and a lot of games of Spider Solitaire…because it also helped me to think.
So a great winter…one I hope I don’t need to repeat but still a great winter.