With a certain regularity The Garden of Nâm hosts retreats in which holistic ways are shared in order to optimise the experience of living. These ways are rooted in ancient cultures that incorporate traditions like Shamanism, Yoga and QiGong. These ways have proven themselves to be very beneficial for human health by harmonising the different dimensions of experience.
During the last 6 months 3 fully booked QiGong events showed that the richness of these traditions can easily be expressed in very different retreat experiences. ´Letting go´ provided the thematic framework during the first retreat. During the second the medical Zheng Ti aspect of GiGong was explained and explored while the third retreat emphasised the more practical side of exercising QiGong in daily living.
For this months journal retreat leaders Marion van den Waardenburg and Wabke Bouwman wrote each an impression of their time in the Garden of Nâm in which they carried a group in Awe and Wonder though even so many healing events while exploring Qi.
Marion’s Impression
Three months living, being and working in The Garden of Nâm.
The longer I am here, the less I can put into words what is happening inside me.
The Silent Retreat had already been going for a day when I arrived. That was familiar to me, but it immediately proved to be a challenge. Beyond my inner rumbling, having come home to myself, I found in the silence an even deeper stillness; in Abbah! Love!
Looking back on these three months, there was not a single moment when I thought: what am I doing here, or I wish I were home. I am here and I feel at home with the family of the Garden of Nâm and her guests.
The conversations I have had with Yoginâm have made me realise that it is programmes that stand in the way of life. “No”, he emphasises it once more: “this is not a sect”. Something I do not experience as such either, but which some people apparently find easy to project onto it. Yoginâm has accepted his task as a calling, through which The Garden of Nâm has come naturally into being, and is still developing.
I also took part in the ‘Meaningful Living’ pilot together with 6 wonderful young people. I felt like a fish in water, enjoyed and learned from what these young people showed me, as well as from my own insights. The guidance felt powerful in its simplicity, love and spaciousness.
Along the way I came to know the members of the family of the Garden of Nâm better, appreciating and respecting each of them in their own way. Consciously taking time to meet the beautiful human being in each person.
Living a few months within this family felt enriching. The balance between being of service to the community and to myself became one whole. Clearing the path within myself when something blocks is familiar to me; living in a community where everyone does the same is new.
Maturity, love and service, but also mischief, teasing and occasionally pushing back, all find their place and make life in the Garden simply human again. There is laughter, there is humour. My sometimes overly serious side I would gladly trade for a little more lightness.
The retreat I gave, a 7-day Inner Journey for Body, Heart and Soul with Zhengti (Medical Qigong), was especially successful because it took place here, in this community, with Silences, Asha meditations, Massages, individual Harpmood sessions and Healings by Yoginâm. It moved me deeply that in the end all participants were welcomed at the Gathering. They felt embraced by the whole, connected with what IS.
On the sixth day, the day on which the element of Fire and the Heart were addressed at all levels, Tim gave his first try-out concert for us: “LOVE FOR YOU”. It could not have been more beautiful. In Asha.
I close with two things I could not have imagined.
My greatest dream for years has been to live, be and work in a community. A community where there is love and togetherness, where each person offers their qualities. People for whom having enough is enough, and who are willing to share. Where people grow in their humanity. With all my good intentions and effort, I had not managed to bring this about.
Until someone here said to me: ‘Marion, you are already there.’ It was as if I were lifted up, turned 180 degrees and set back down again. Slowly it is beginning to sink in: the community I dream of already exists.
I close with a reflection from: Abbah Unveiling — 99 Reflections by Yoginâm. I opened the book at random and landed on reflection 44. This text made such an impression on me, I read and reread it. It felt as though it had been written for me.
44
Where is the silent permanence of my living
Where is the hidden potential for its unfolding
I sprouted in the human living of ‘I/World’
To answer these questions by other than reasoning
I have to morph ‘All-That-Is’ into ‘All-is-Abbah’
In observation the observer blocks the way
The vehicle for my Journey of the Return
Is the vehicle of I-annihilating GratitudeYoginâm, Abbah Unveiling
Wonder remains, and I take it home with me.
Foundation, homecoming, inner peace, surrender.
With gratitude to all the people: for the love, service, silences and communication. And for the wonderful food every day.
💛 Marion, 17 March 2026
Wabke’s Impression
You cannot be grateful to yourself
For being the cause of what you are
But you can be struck by Awe and Wonder
That you are what you are:
That essence beyond comprehension
Infuse your life with Awe and Wonder
And saturate the dimensions of Experience
With its beneficial resonance.Yoginâm
A Week in Wonder
Teaching in the Garden of Nâm always has something wonderful about it. In Qigong terms, we would say that the ‘Qi field of the Garden’ is already so strong in itself that you need to do very little for a healing experience.
“This place immediately feels like coming home”
We had only been in the Garden for a few hours when one of the participants told me that the moment she walked through the gate, it felt like coming home. You might think of the appearance of the place, which is beautiful, but that feeling is about something else. It is a recognition of something essential, something you cannot describe, but when you experience it, you know it is so.
“It is much more beautiful and better kept than I expected!”
Perhaps it was because in the information letter I had described the Garden as being entirely managed by ‘volunteers’, which led some to expect something of a hippie-ish scene. That is really not the case in the Garden. It is elegant, well-maintained, with good food, and the garden itself is of course simply stunning.
“This place has truly touched me”
During the week, people asked me how I had come into contact with Nâm Living. I had not shared those memories for quite some time. Telling the story again brought the awareness that it was in 2002. I had landed on a website and read a text there about how human experience works, and could only think: ‘this is real!’ This goes beyond concepts and ideas (of which I had collected quite a few over the course of my life 😉). Afterwards I learned that this was a text written by Yoginâm. That quality is what you find in the Garden of Nâm, naturally for those who are open to it, and from what I see as it gets busier and busier, that is more and more people!
“This keeps working for a while”
A large part of the group chose to receive a healing from Yoginâm. ‘A healing with Yoginâm is, in a sense, something being brought back into balance at a fundamental level’, as Hubertus explained. I did not ask people how they had experienced it, because putting words to such an experience always makes it smaller than it is. Much like trying to capture being in love in words, which is impossible! But I saw faces relax, lights in eyes, emotions dissolve, and I think the phrase ‘this keeps working for a while’ applies not only to the healings, but to this week as a whole.
And me?
After a day of travelling from the Garden back home, I sit on the train, a little tired, but above all relaxed, light and clear. A visit to Yoginâm and the Garden of Nâm helps me remember, every single time, that life is wonderful. That when you are open to it and ‘connected in the Qi field’, things are continually happening to which you can only respond with gratitude, in Awe and Wonder.
