Daily OM for August 23 – Going Away to Go Within

Going Away to Go Within

Retreat

by Madisyn Taylor

Going on retreat is a time to cocoon so that we may emerge ready to return to our lives with a new perspective.

 

Occasionally, we need to pause – and step away from the hustle and bustle of modern life. One way to do this is to get away from our daily life and go on retreat. Far more than a vacation, a retreat offers us time to ourselves to rest, heal, reflect, and renew our spirit. It is a time to cocoon so that we may emerge renewed, refreshed, and ready to return to our everyday lives with a new perspective. A retreat gives us time for uninterrupted meditation so that we may go deep within and spend time with ourselves.

A retreat may offer quiet, solitude, and sometimes even silence. Retreats often take place in humble dwellings with simple fare so that our senses may be reawakened to the beauty of unadorned tastes and the sights and sounds of nature. When we spend days in contemplation, we can more easily hear our heart when it speaks to us. We also are able to really listen when a bird sings, deeply breathe in the smell of flowers, grass, or earth, and delight in a soft breeze blowing on our cheek. When we go on retreat we have time to connect to the sacred geometry of a labyrinth, discover epiphanies through asanas, or take a long, reflective walk through the woods where we can give each step our full attention.

Without the pull of deadlines, relationships, the Internet, or other media, we give ourselves time to go deep into our own solitude where we can fully reflect on our joys, sorrows, and fears, owning and releasing them as needed. We may even come to know and understand our life path more deeply. Hopefully, when we return home, we can take a little bit of this time alone back with us and create the space for deep reflection on a daily basis. We also may come back to our life renewed and ready to take on the world. The beauty of going on retreat is that no matter where you go or how long you stay, you’ll always meet yourself when you get there.

MAGICK — THE FOUR WORLDS

MAGICK — THE FOUR WORLDS

The ancients described man as mind, body, and soul.

Psychologists of the twentieth century added the

subconscious to that deffinition. This produces a four-fold

classification. The universe is also divided into four

corresponding parts (‘worlds’), as shown below:

WORLD BODY QUALITY

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spiritual world spiritual body (soul or kia) intuition

mental world mental body (conscious mind) rational

thought

astral world astral body (subconscious) emotions

physical world physical body physical senses

The astral body (subconscious) is the intermediary

for intuition, magical and psychic phenomena, and is the

‘psychic link’ to the physical world. Most occult and

magical phenomena originate in the invisible, non-sensate,

THE BASICS OF MAGICK

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non-physical realm (ie. without physical senses). Each of

the four worlds interacts with the other worlds. Psychic

energy flows from the spiritual to mental to astral to

physical. The physical world is a projection (manifestation,

reflection, or shadow) of the higher worlds. Our center of

consciousness is generally within these higher worlds.

“We are”, to quote the rock music group the Police, “spirits

in the material world”.

There are many similar terms used by other occult

groups. For example, ‘astral light’ is another name for

astral world, although it may sometimes also refer to the

entire non-physical realm, as may ‘inner planes’ or ‘the

invisible world’. Planes are essentially the same as worlds.

Vehicles or sheaths are the same as bodies. Some groups

include an etheric or vital body between physical and

astral: it is mostly ‘physical’ with a little of the

lower ‘astral’ besides. And sometimes astral and mental

are each divided into two parts (upper and lower). The

‘causal body’ is the upper ‘mental’.