On retreating
Discover more from Journey Home to Self by Deepshikha Sairam
I looked up the word “Retreat”. Google defines it as “an act of moving back or withdrawing”
I didn’t think I needed to move back. Who wants to move back anyway? We all want to move forward. But yes, I definitely wanted to, needed to withdraw.
It started as a primal desire in the pit of my stomach. Actually lower. Somewhere in my pubic bones.
“Withdraw. Withdraw” It nudged at me.
I wanted to ditch everything and move to the middle of nowhere. I joked to my husband “You know we could sell everything and move to an Island somewhere in the Indian Ocean. No school. No homework. No jobs. No fucking Social Media.”
He shot it down since he doesn’t eat fish.
In her book “The Heroine’s Journey”, author Maureen Murdock writes about every Heroine’s primal need to withdraw and spend time alone. She calls it the Initiation and Descent to the Goddess.
She says “To the outside world a woman who has begun her descent is preoccupied, sad, and inaccessible. Her tears often have no name but they are ever present. Whether she cries or not. She cannot be comforted, she feels abandoned. She forgets things. She chooses not to see friends, she curls up in a ball on the couch or refuses to come out of her room, she digs in the earth, or walks in the woods. The mud and the trees become her companions. She enters a period of voluntary isolation seen by her family and friends as a loss of her senses.”
Voluntary Isolation. Yes!!! Now that’s what I’d use to describe what I felt in my bones.
This feeling was familiar. I have been here before. This is the Journey to the Underworld. The Dark Night of the Soul. Meeting of the Dark Goddess.
“Women find their back to themselves by moving down into the depths of their being,” Murdock says
The last time I was here, I resisted it. I held on to the known, familiar world and went into the Underworld screaming and kicking. It took me a full 2 years to understand that this was where I needed to be to become more Whole, to come Home to myself.
This time, I knew the truth. The descent is a sacred journey.
Therefore, I longed for it. Our senses fool us into the illusion of our 3-Dimensional world. Our ego lives by the rules of this world and with the “identity” it has created for us. It’s not good or bad, it just is. It always makes you look for the answers outside of you. The pill, the diet, the product, the program, the coach, the next “level up” investment. Rarely is the answer there.
I thought I needed a holiday and new clothes (Ha, Cute!).
What I needed was deprivation. A sensory deprivation.
Social Media was the first thing to go. I don’t even think I need to explain this one but cutting myself from a stream of constant “news’ from the outside world was necessary for me to make the descent.
This was a good start but not enough. I needed to get away. I needed to Retreat.
Last year I had gone to a 7-Day Meditation Retreat led by Dr.Joe Dispenza. It was a beautiful, life-changing experience. I longed to be in that space again. The minute the next retreat opened up for registration, I signed up!
Number 7 has a lot of significance in our world.
There are seven colors of the rainbow, seven chakras, seven days of the week, seven continents, and seven wonders of the world. The number seven is featured extensively in many religions.
The sacred geometric symbol known as ''The Seed of Life'' consists of seven circles of the same size.
Magic happened during those 7 Days. Actually, what happened in those 7 Days was Metamorphosis.
It’s been over a week since I made my way up from the Underworld just in time for Spring, Persephone style 🌸. I took some time to integrate the magic that transpired in those 7 days.
But it won’t be 100% magical if I didn’t have 7 lessons to share from my “retreat” down below. I probably can share 5 lessons or 20, but like I said there’s something about the number 7!
I thought it’d be fun for me to share those with you over the course of 7 days. I am doing this for two reasons.
First, teaching something you learned is the best way to integrate and embody it. This is purely selfish. I want these to set in my bones so next time The Dark Mother comes calling, I am ready for her. Who am I kidding? We can never be ready for her.
Second, this is the time in history when we no longer have to die for our truth. We can speak it without the witch trials. We can live for our truth. I hope in my sharing, I can be a mirror for your truth as well.
Unflinching honesty is what I promise. Yes, I went to some deep, dark places and some heavenly beautiful ones too.
I once heard a wise person say, to tell people a good story, you often have to start at the end.
The picture below is a sneak peek for the ending
More tomorrow,
🦋