This morning we enjoyed time in gentle silence until after breakfast as a way to ease ourselves gently into this sacred space. What a beautiful breakfast spread the hospitality team at Flores had prepared for us - fresh bread, eggs, yogurt, fruit, cereals, pastries, jams, juices, tea, coffee and more! Wonderful nourishment for body and spirit to start the day!

Throughout the day we continued building community and deepening connection as we shared meals, learned about pilgrimage, explored sacred geometry, colored with pigments from the earth, and listened for the first time to a song my son, Timothy, composed, performed and produced for our retreat. I may be biased but I believe his music sets the tone beautifully for our journey together into the ever-deepening silence over the next few days. I wasn’t the only one with tears in my eyes as we listened to his soothing and peaceful piece!

This evening we began co-creating our sacred chapel space by placing meaningful stones into a lovely earthenware bowl in the baptismal font. Tomorrow we will add water that we each brought from our homes and light a beautiful beeswax candle that will remain burning for our 3 days & 3 nights of deep silence that begins tomorrow evening.

Finally, I continue to be deeply moved by the beauty of this little town that is a UNESCO world heritage site with only about 100 full-time inhabitants. It really is a stunningly quaint little town. If I can figure out how, I will include a little video of the view from my room during this morning’s sunrise! So beautiful and peaceful!

Tomorrow morning we will all rise early to watch the sunrise together and build a small labyrinth we will use throughout the rest of the retreat. Also, just a little heads up… I may not post much over the next few days so as to allow myself to enter more deeply into the silence with minimal connections to technology.

In fact, one of the fun things that we do during the retreat to help folks steer clear of the temptations of technology is that everyone is given a “cell phone sleeping bag” (a small canvas drawstring bag) to put their phone in when they are not using it for music, reading, taking photos, etc. The “sleeping bag” is a light-hearted visual reminder to help us to pause and resist our default mode of turning to technology to fill the silence rather than turning to God in the stillness.

Your prayers continue to be such a gift. And, we continue to hold your prayers in our community prayer journal as well. Praise be to God for the gift of prayer and the connection of the Holy Spirit that transcends space and time.

Easing into the silence...

belly of the whale spiritual direction & retreat ministries