Meditation can be challenging to establish and maintain in daily life. Distractions, noise, and the constant pull of responsibilities often disrupt the calm focus needed for a meaningful practice. Silent retreats offer a unique environment that supports deepening meditation by removing these obstacles. Spending dedicated time in silence allows the mind to settle, habits to form, and awareness to grow in ways that are difficult to achieve otherwise. Silence is more than the ab

“Truth is a pathless land” Jiddu Krishnamurti. Sometimes we get stuck in a path because it is familiar and comfortable. Are we willing to question the “known” to listen to our heart and step into the “unknown”?

When you “rest as awareness” you shift your focus from identifying with thoughts, emotions, or sensations to recognizing yourself as the observing presence or awareness behind these experiences. It involves a conscious letting go of effort and resting in the natural state of awareness itself.Instead of clinging to or resisting thoughts and feelings, you allow them to arise and pass without judgment, seeing them as transient phenomena within the space of awareness.There’s no n

My first silent mediation retreat many years ago was life changing. In those ten days I was able to observe my thoughts and conditioning from a place beyond the web of my thoughts. The teacher, S.N. Goenka, offered numerous forms of guidance but he repeated one on a regular basis - “As it is, not as you would like it to be.” It’s certainly not always easy, but I have attempted to live those words as much as possible since that time. Our life unfolds in ways that is often beyo

Fear is one of the biggest impediments to an unfulfilling life and the cause of much of our stress and anxiety. When I reflect on my life I would say that 90 percent of the decisions made from fear resulted in outcomes that were unsatisfactory at best and often the cause of suffering. Fear limits our awareness of possibilities. It cause us to react from a narrow and often familiar perspective rather than being open to the many possibilities available from an expanded consciou

Finding moments of quiet in our busy lives can feel impossible. Yet, silence holds a special power. It allows us to slow down, listen deeply, and reconnect with ourselves. This October, I invite you to join a silent yoga and meditation retreat in Vermont from October 8 to 12. It is a chance to step away from noise and distraction, and to explore stillness in a supportive, natural setting. The retreat offers a gentle, guided experience focused on silence, yoga, breathwork and

As we go through life we receive and select various roles or identities. The role of being a mother, father, grandparent, teacher, doctor, lawyer, successful business person, wise therapist or brilliant scientist. The list is endless. They can be roles that we and society consider “praiseworthy” like a successful athlete or diminishing like “uneducated” or “uncreative”. We even identify wth roles like “the quiet one”, “an introvert”, “the hero”, or “the victim." Having recent

Holotropic breathwork offers a unique path to healing that goes beyond traditional methods. It taps into the power of breath to unlock deep emotional and psychological release. Many people seek relief from stress, trauma, and emotional blocks, and holotropic breathwork provides a way to access these layers safely and effectively. Holotropic breathwork is a breathing technique developed in the 1970s by psychiatrist Stanislav Grof and his wife Christina Grof. The word "holotrop

So many of us are taught that the purpose of life is to achieve, accumulate, and gain power and wealth. Yet when we pause and look deeply, the moments that truly touch our hearts are much simpler— a gesture of kindness, a moment of compassion, the quiet presence of love between people. Power and wealth promise happiness, but often pull us further into striving and separation. Love, kindness and compassion do the opposite. They soften the sense of “me” and reminds us that we b

The ability to forgive is one of the most healing and beneficial actions one can take for themselves or others. In my observations and conversations with students on retreat over the years I have been struck by the number of people carrying the burden of anger, resentment, jealousy or hatred toward another. One of the essential purposes of spiritual practice is to develop the capacity to “step out of the box” of our limited perspectives, the conditioning of our limited mindse

The Benefits of a Silent Retreat Many years ago I was in a moment of transition, having left my career as a lawyer and living in the unknown. A friend suggested that I attend a ten day silent retreat and I signed up that day. Those ten days changed my life. In the silence, away from the distractions of the world, I was able to see how unhelpful the majority of my normal thoughts were. Most of them were based on conditioning or other people’s ideas of what was important.

The ancient texts called Upanishads have one central message: you are not separate from the universe. You never were. The word yoga means to unite — and this is exactly what the Upanishads teach. The practice of yoga didn't begin on a mat. It began as a profound philosophical inquiry into the nature of the self. Who am I, underneath all my roles, thoughts, and fears? The Upanishads call the individual soul Atman and the universal consciousness Brahman — and their deepest

A reflection on silence, stillness, and what becomes possible when we stop talking. Most of us have never chosen silence. We have experienced it accidentally — a power outage, a long drive alone, an early morning before the house wakes up. But to choose it deliberately, to step into five days of collective quiet with a group of strangers, is something different entirely. It is also, for many people, one of the most profound things they have ever done. At Rolling Meadows Retre

When I reflect on many of the opinions I have had in my life I am humbled by how often they were either very limited or outright wrong. Our opinions often feel like part of who we are. We defend them, cling to them, and sometimes build our identity around them. But when we hold them too tightly, they can close us off from learning, from listening, and from one another. Holding an opinion lightly doesn’t mean we stop caring or thinking deeply. It means we stay open. We recogni