My final week at Las Pyramides was the best (and at times the worst!). The week kicked off with a trip across the lake to El Arko, which is another property of Las Pyramides. This remote site is still being built, but it primarily houses people who are taking the Sun Course (a deeper, 3 month version of the Moon Course, culminating with 40 days of silence!!!). In case you’re worried, I am NOT feeling ready for that! We had a potluck lunch, then an ‘opening ceremony’ of sorts to start the retreat week. And that was when we spoke our last words.
For these 5 days, we were in silence (heavenly as I was getting tired of listening to certain members of the group) and doing a juice/soup/tea cleansing diet (again, heavenly as I was really tired of sharing the small, never clean kitchen with 19 others). We had the chance to use the sauna daily (can I say heavenly again?). The downsides included no music, no reading, significantly less food than I’m used to, and, of course, not communicating with all of you.
Each day we participated in morning yoga and an evening meditation. Throughout the rest of the day we had structured homework, plus a lot of time for sleeping and feeling bored and hungry. On day 1 we were to think about our ideal physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual selves. Day 2 we were to think about our actual physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual selves. Day 3 focused on thinking about what we need to do to make the actual more like the ideal. On day 4 we reflected on the barriers we have that have prevented us from actualizing our ideals. Is this sounding familiar to my OT friends out there?? A holistic, concrete exercise for self improvement!
Finally day 5 was centered on answering questions about a higher power, followed by the Moon Ceremony to welcome and honour the full moon. As previously mentioned this was the ONLY occasion where wearing all white was required (side note, one time on laundry day I was wearing one of my numerous all-white pairings and one of the instructors asked me what kind of ceremony I participated in that day).
All in all, it was an amazing month! I’m looking forward to a big meal, continuing with self improvement, and to starting 2 weeks of travels with RobO!
I’ll leave you with some pictures of El Arko.
The kitchen. For the record, I didn’t make the signs, though I fully supported them!
Recipe for hunger! I did pretty well with this until a frantic, ravenous attack on a banana on Friday night at 10pm made me accept that I had to supplement my diet for the last day!
The graduates!
Welcome back! Enjoy your time with Rob!
Great post!! Congrats fellow moonie! I almost kept those pants as per your suggestion, but then I realized … who am I kidding? I'll NEVER wear them again. So, at the pyramids they stayed.