Adventure and Quietude

 

"Not all who wander are lost."

- J.R.R. Tolkien.

Last month I had a little adventure followed by time at a retreat centre, and it felt to me like the perfect balance. I love my life, am grateful for what I have, yet still I get so energised by being in new places and stepping outside of the everyday ordinary routines. There's something about a trip away that opens me up to all the wonder and joy of our world and increases my ability to think in new ways about how to live my life and spend my time. 

Driving north to the centre, I took a couple of nights to stay in a town I've never stayed in before and then in a city to visit with friends. The weather made driving on the first day pretty scary, with rain coming down so hard I had to pull over, but I made it in one piece and filled my cup with new views and old friends. Then on to Hobbiton, which I loved, and then to Sudarshanaloka, where I had five nights in a forest cabin in delightful solitude. 

Driving up to the cabin is definitely an exercise in "Type 2 fun" where it's pretty scary at the time but that makes you feel so alive afterwards. It's a way to leave my ordinary life behind, each river ford being a place to drop my work concerns and each scary corner as a place to throw my worries off the side and down the cliff! 

And then arriving at the cabin the adrenaline ebbs and the peacefulness flows - the birdsong taking over from the sound of the road, the green and blue taking over from the grey of the tarmac. My friend had stayed in the cabin a week or so before me so I went straight to the guest book to read her message for me and felt so plugged in and connected to her, to the valley around me, and to everyone who had ever stayed there and appreciated the quiet beauty of the place. 

One word, quietude, bubbled up and stayed with me for my whole visit, and it felt like it was both a descriptor of the peacefulness of the cabin but also of a particular state I get into when I'm there - I turn my phone off for hours at a time, ceasing the constant flow of input of music, podcasts, movies, and conversations. I lie on the bed and stare at the clouds, watch the mist play over the trees on the other side of the valley, and I crack open my consciousness and allow myself to think Big Thoughts. I wake with the sun, eat when I'm hungry, walk in the forest for hours, and watch every sunrise and every sunset.

This retreat centre is a place I have visited a number of times - they called me a "frequent flyer" on one of my recent visits! It's a Buddhist centre, but non-Buddhists (as I am) are welcome too. It's a place of solitude and quietude and is becoming an incredibly important aspect of my life, a place I visit twice a year and where I feel I'm visiting myself, allowing my soft and wise voice to be heard between the rainshowers and the wind whispering - or yelling - through the leaves. It is a long drive from home but there's something about the journey there and back which makes it even more magical.

I think without the adventure the quietude would feel less poignant. 

When I think back to periods of my life where I've felt unbalanced I think it's because I've not given myself enough of either adventure or quietude. After cancer and covid I really leaned into being a homebody, cocooning myself away in my cottage. I loved it and I needed it, but too much of that started to stagnate me, and my world shrank, slowly but surely. And at other times I've had too much adventure - maybe a relationship that was too intense or a life that was constantly changing and forever unstable. I love the quiet confidence that grows inside me as I get older - I always felt I had such a tenuous connection to self-worth, friendship, my work, my home, and now I know and like myself so much better and it has made existing so much easier and joyful. 

There are other ways to think about this: work-life balance, expanding and contracting, questing and resting - but for me the words adventure and quietude tingle in my brain deliciously and help me understand myself that little bit better. Life feels more special when I mix novelty with reflection and I'm grateful I've figured this out about myself as it makes me excited for the adventures and quietude still to come

I've made a YouTube video of this blog, you'll find it here.