Episode 4 (Wine Tasting Crash Course and how to do a Retreat)

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Spark My Muse – Episode 4 (Wine Tasting Crash Course and how to do a Retreat)

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This episode is brought to you by:

Narnia Retreats

-customized, guided, quiet, refreshing

Wine segment:

Involve all the senses as to wine and enjoy wine.

Take your time and build your awareness. (This makes for a great spiritual practice as well.)

Sparking your Muse:

Today’s topic:
A personal Retreat – critical for creativity, spiritual sensitivity, and well being.

The retreat center I go to.

Spiritual Thirst:

By the time you are thirsty, your kidney’s have sent an emergency signal to your brain. Now the brain tries to regain health for your body with urges to drink. It’s better to provide for the body ahead of time, of course. The same is true for a thirsty soul. Don’t let yourself get morbidly parched. It’s not healthy for you or anyone in your life. It’s terrible for your art and your creative muse, and your mission in the world. You have to be well to do right by others. You have to be well to do well. But most of all you have to properly BE.

Getting it wrong:

A retreat that’s more of a social gathering with activities…That’s a Protestant, Western, answer to a problem that misunderstands the question.

Catholic tradition with it’s long history of spiritual retreats and spiritual guides was too much spurned by Protestant protest against it in favor of being busy at work and productive, while too often letting the soul starve for want of divine tranquility and peace.

God is best found in stillness and when the boisterous yammering of our heart and mind are soothed by rest and unplugging in every way.

The real question is not how can I find a party so I can feel whole….but How do I find my whole way home?

Home is within.

You become quiet and you go inside. God is within. You won’t find a God of Sabbath rest “out there” or at a place.

3 Most Important Tips:

1. put it on the calendar. mark it off. It’s a vacation day.
Or as the British say it (better) “you need to go on holiday!”

HOLY DAY.

Holy means set apart. That’s exactly what retreat should be.

If you take take off from work for doctor’s apps, then think of it like that.

Block off 4-6 hours at minimum

8-10 is better and 24-48 is really when things get very beneficial.

AND Go away from home and people. A retreat center, a natural setting, a private room at a church or someone’s home.

2. Do all you can to minimize all distractions and obligations.

Plan ahead. Tell people you WILL be off the grid. Not able to be contacted. at all.

Leave your phone in your car. A few hours won’t kill you. If you think that it might, or that you can’t possibility be out-of-contact…or maybe that you are too important and busy to do this.

Then you have to be even more serious able doing it. Delusion has set in. You have become blind. You are starting to die a soul death. Get away RIGHT away!

(You may be afraid of what thoughts are going to come up when things get quiet. Be brave!)

3. Let the chatter die out.
If your mind is clamoring…and it will be if you have a lot to be responsible for….then you really can’t get to a place of rest.

• Jot everything down quickly and put it to the side. It will be there when you get back and you will be able to deal with it better.

A simple Worksheet that’s perfect for retreats:

• The SHARPENING Ritual

• The SHARPENING Ritual
(PRAYER-centered VERSION)

Special perks and rewards are available too. Join with the Spark My Muse community at the Spark My Muse page at Patreon! Click the image for more info.

Holiday update: My tech dieting

shotssmartphoto

I read a post….called…wait for it…

One Month with No Phone — How to Go Phoneless in a Major US City

at Tim Ferriss’ site that made me want to laugh and cry and then shake my head and then sigh…and now…confess.

So, it’s like this…

A whole generation can’t imagine what it’s like to live without a mobile phone and miraculously guest writer, Lane Wood…(sounds like a bowling alley product, right?) managed a whole month without one. He got around it with tons of technology and had to acquire a lot of patience. But, he’s still alive and everything.

But…Um. We do remember that just a few years ago most people didn’t have smart phones, right? Yes? Even you youthful Millenials?

Duh. Not even ten years ago we had stupid phones. Now the phone have a distinct intellectual edge, obviously.

I’m not a ancient relic, but I remember when “communication technology” was finding a creepy phone box thing that eat quarters and held you hostage with its strong metal cord. I would tell the operator, or the computer, my name was “Pick Me Up” so my dad would fetch me from Volleyball practice. The only people who had mobile phones were doctors, and most of them still had pagers. (If you’re clueless here, Google it up, okay.) Things have changed so much in so little time. I can barely remember a time that I wasn’t somehow attached to tech like I am now. CRAZZZZY.

Having no money makes you creative apparently, and now Lane’s an evangelist warning us that tech is cramping our lives and making us less human. No, it’s not big news, but I’m glad it’s getting more “air time” anyhow. Seriously.

I’m not posting now to pass judgement. Nope. I have changed to adopt the norms this guy has (seemingly) only ever known. Guilty. as. charged. Lane, I thank you. But, it is sort of sad, all of it.

Now to the good news:

In the last few days, because my kids have been on vacation, I have gone on a major diet…not with food…I was bad on that front. No, I haven’t used my phone, Facebook, twitter, Buffer, on been on my blog or or anyone else’s almost at all.

It’s been…NICE!

It’s like being able to breathe again. Lane, I’m with you!

Have you been on any sort of diet this season?

How long could you last without technology?

And I’m curious…what did you think of Lane’s article? Let me know.

It’s time for Weird Santa

I had a viral post last week and that was fun! Check it out.

I don’t watch my stats much. It gives me a brain bug. But a few times per week, sometimes, I take a peek and it was cool to see the huge spike upward. Stats used to get me on a roller coaster of moodiness. No more.

A special thank you to Ray Hollenbach and David Fitch who shoved the Myth of Ordinary Time post lovingly into the Twitterverse and also to everyone else who liked it on Facebook and read it and shared it. Was that you? Thank you!

Want a little holiday humor?

Search this site for Weird Santa Photos.

There’s a trove you’ll love.

(caution: Santa appears to be Caucasian in these photos.)

Here’s one to get you started:

27 Things to Talk About At Thanksgiving Dinner

There’s no place like home for the holidays…

It can be fun, it can be World War III, or something in-between…but there’s no place like it!

I checked around and found out some people are counting on one thing to get them through Thanksgiving this year.

• Food? No.

• Gratefulness? No.

• Football? No.

• Shopping? No.

What then?
Booze.

That’s right, the medicine that’s kept family feasting bearable since the dawn of time. Even cave-dwellers were digging up their stashes of mead before gathering with the clan around the family fire pit and feasting on wooly mammoth, or what-have-you.

Some families don’t drink alcohol, of course. This is no time for hair-splitting. You’ve come here for help. Scroll down for the resource!

For introverts holiday gatherings can be tedious, but it’s more than that. It seems that most of us are less used to conversing face-to-face. It’s a lost art. We get itchy so soon now to numb out or escape on smartphones, tv, and the computer and then time for connection is wasted. Or, the discomfort of connecting (or misconnecting) has us looking for the exits. I’ve been there!

Here’s the truth: When extended families get together there’s usually baggage, off-limit topics, old wounds, jealousies, and enough backstory to create torrents of anxiety. That’s the side of the holidays that doesn’t make it to the commercials.

No, it’s not always like this.
Sometimes it’s just family fun and favorite foods, and good times from start to finish, but that isn’t really the way things go typically. At the very least there’s the stress of the adding obligations and scheduling everything will wind things up.

Here’s some help!
Rather than zone out or make guests uncomfortable, which is also time-tested family tradition in many homes too, try these conversation starters as you feast and holiday! Recycle them for other days if you had fun with it, or think of some of your own. Don’t put pressure on anyone to play, but use this quick download as an excuse to to try something different. It really doesn’t take much to upgrade your holiday.

You might want to implement a 2 hour technology fast. This seems like a great idea…then you do it and 20 minutes later your nerves start to fry. (That’s what I mean about a lost art!) This can help with that.

Feel free to view, download or print the file below.

Other tips:
• You might want to place a printed question under each plate, or into a hat to draw from. Feel free to have duplicate questions circulating too.

• A person can answer the question that they get or they can swap with a previous question (your house rules can be different–just have fun with it. The point is to have fun).

• Remember keep the whole thing chilled out and enjoyable.

Not sure how to start?

Just say, “Hey, everyone, I thought this year instead of just asking everyone what they are thankful for, I thought we could play a game while we eat!

• If it doesn’t work out, just blame the game. Easy-peasy.

Click here to read, download, and print.
(It’s also a good way to get your kids involved and keep them busy.)

27 Things to talk about:
THANKSGIVING FEAST – TABLE TALK “GAME”

(FILE) Tabletalkgame DOCUMENT

Have a Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

I’d love to hear how things went.

Let me know! and stop back to hear the audio podcast released twice per week.

Know someone who might need some holiday help?
Please share !

Creatives:

So, I’ve noticed something:

It’s really common for creative types (musicians, writers, artists, filmmakers, etc) to get into a serious funk, especially come Autumn season. Whether it’s the chilly weather, the shorter periods of daylight, the pre-holiday blitz, or whatever else…plenty of us hit up against FUNK.

I’m not talking about catchy music (Funk as in…Soul music with a greater emphasis on beats, influences from rhythm and blues, jazz and psychedelic rock). No, I’m talking about the feeling that something is wrong in the universe.

I was all up in a funk when I read an article from Tim Ferriss. If this successful Mr Moneybags type who’s arguably America’s favorite life hacker gets hit up with a phase of Funk, why should I think it’s strange for me to splash into one. I started listening and looking around, and it turns out it’s “a thing”.

Perhaps it comes out as cynicism, annoyance, restlessness, or ennui.

en·nui

[ahn-wee, ahn-wee; French ahn-nwee]

noun

a feeling of utter weariness and discontent
resulting from satiety or lack of interest;

boredom:

The endless lecture produced an unbearable ennui.

(ennui isn’t mere boredom though, the connotation is really more of a life-weariness…a “funk”)

Maybe it’s just low-grade blah or maybe it’s full-blown depressive feelings.

Whatever it is, it’s common. You are not alone.

We have to push through. Yes, Winter will be long, but we can use the time to germinate our ideas and bloom in a few months.

If you’re feeling the onslaught of FALL FUNK let me know!

We’ll check up on each other. We’ll un-funk-ify!

Shownotes Spark My Muse – Episode 4 (Wine Tasting Crash Course and how to do a Retreat)