The most compelling reason to Get Off the Grid and Go Out of this World is to escape from the time/space reality of responsibility to a clock and a cell phone.
Leaving behind daily routines and making it harder to reach out through technology opens a door to go more deeply within yourself and see more clearly. Communication becomes slower and more satisfying, and life-long connections are forged.
At the recent Summer Solstice retreat we spent 5 days with the only wi-fi being a 2 mile hike up a hill to catch a signal. Believe me, we appreciated it when we got up there, but this is a modern day recipe to stimulate examination of inner thoughts, beliefs and perceptions.
What kind of life changes and struggles are really transformed from a retreat like this?
As promised, this month we follow the journey of my friend and Wise Woman Cathy Ingham, as she takes her ah-ha moments from a recent Spiritual Adventure retreat into a new project and brings her dream into reality.
A little background on Cathy will shed a lot of light on her vision. She is a landscape architect by trade and has developed into an eco-savvy builder of rain catchment systems, solar powered dwellings and naturally maintained, chlorine free pools. She recently gently eased out of a 15 year project of love that utilized all of her skills, Green Planet Sanctuary, selling it to a Montessori school as an inspiration and teaching tool to the children. Selling it left a void, an emptiness and she needed some time to grieve.
“I struggled with wondering if I was selling out, backing away from my true purpose or was it really time to move on?”
This was a huge life transition for her, and was the catalyst for her decision to go on a retreat with me, for Summer Solstice.
“I was exhausted, ready for a time out, needing to regroup and let my mind and my heart rest, let go.”
During our time together, as related in my previous article in Spiritual Biz, we focused on healing modalities such as Temezcal herbal steams and River Clay exfoliant massage. We did daily visualizations of our best possible futures and reveled in the natural beauty of a remote beach on the Pacific coast.
“It was really nice to be really truly off the grid, a relief to not have to post on Fb or respond to email, and to have a chance to get the internal wi-fi going.”
It was during this time that Cathy really let go of the past and realized her best and most creative journey is ahead. She has decided to take a 25 acre piece of the Texas Hill Country that she bought several years ago, and turn it into a Glamping Destination Retreat.
Glamping – A fusion of glamour and camping – emerged internationally and came across the Atlantic over the last decade, for travelers who want to experience the positive aspects of camping without the “uncomfortable” negatives. Glamping focuses on a high level of service for the complete comfort of the guests.
There are all kinds of implementations of this new phenomenon, all over the world, but Cathy is doing hers up as a real Texas treat.
She will have Arlene, the Airstream as one of her rentals, and a shipping container repurposed as a gift shop. Her future plans also include a yurt, a country cabin moved to the perfect spot by a pond, and a labyrinth to add that touch of spirituality that glamping is famous for.
As Cathy says, it is still coming into focus for her and she is going to start with a personal home for herself and her husband to create from. She is looking forward to fun and the adventure, and the opportunity to help others find what she has found.
She explains it like this.
“Find your hearts home. A place or piece of land or even just a place in the world that speaks to you so strongly that you want to nurture that space, because in return you know it will nurture your spirit.”
Cathy’s huge take away from the retreat was the certainty that she had found her heart’s home, not lost it. To me, this is the essence of the Spiritual Adventure.
