After an amazing summer with dry heat during July and moist warmth in August the coolness of a new season is falling in. The sky is painted with ever-changing landscapes of clouds through which spectacular rays of sunlight burst and magic moons play hide and seek during the still of the night. The first rains are soothing the thirst of an ever evolving garden that has endured the burning peak of our semidesert climate very well. The sudden change of seasons surprises every time. The planting season has started and with the olive harvest ahead the garden team has a lot of work to do. Fortunately we are getting help from our experienced Moroccan neighbour and actively participating guests so we can make good use of this time sensitive opportunity.
Looking back a bit
Due to a number of events, September and the beginning of October has brought a lot of people to the Garden and in spite of the extra capacity with the new rooms we had to be very creative sometimes in finding a place for people to stay. There were Yoga events, a men’s retreat with music, meditation and movement, a Nâm Silence Retreat for women, an external Yoga group and at the moment a QiGong group is exploring the wonder of experience. We also celebrated the birthday of Yoginâm who gracefully accepted our invitation tot a mid-morning tea. In the late afternoon there was an HarpMood Gathering that was also joined via Zoom by friends from all over the world.
“Stepping In”
During the morning tea Yoginâm shared some thoughts on communal living. Optimal living is activated by peacefully stepping into the daily circumstances that life presents you with:
“The living of Nâm is nourished by living together with other people who realise that the purpose of human living is reaching optimal attunement. Asha, life as it presents itself, is the teacher that indicates, it demonstrates. You remain free to accept the lessons or not. Do not immediately subject everything to judgements of liking and disliking. Dive into it and listen, with such an attitude Asha will always present the next step.”
In openness and silence a sense of connection permeates every moment of the day. From this sense it is natural to take good care of each other and to support life in every situation. And because we are listening, we can allow life to show us how it can be lived in the most optimal way.
In the Garden of Nâm everybody’s unique way is respected. What is true for me maybe completely different for somebody else. What seems to be wise now may very well be a delusion later. In the openness of awe and wonder, so it appear again and again, there is always a beneficial way to deal with challenges, tasks and each other.
Pelgrims of the Garden of Nâm
For many guests it is a great relief that the Garden of Nâm is a place of kindness and respect where no central ideology, conviction, belief or truth dictates how life should be lived. In Nâm we can accept that our existence is rooted in a unknowable beyond. And, like Lao Tse says about the Dao, talking about Nâm is not Nâm. Art, however, can express sometimes what cannot be understood. Anna, who is not only a Sardinian Shaman but also an excellent storyteller, wrote a nice dialogue during her stay that shows something about Nâm:
—
Dialogue
a) Let’s talk about Nâm
b) Yes
a) It is indeed Yes
b) But there is nothing to say about Yes.
a) Yes is just Yes
b) It is clear but it feels cold and abstract.
a) There must be a way to approach It as concrete, near and intimate.
b) A kind of Portal, a real Gateway to enter Nâm.
a) There is a living Being in the Sanctuary of The Garden of Nâm, a physical manifestation of Nâm. I cannot imagine a greater portal than Him.
b) What a Precious gift to meet such a manifestation!
a) He donates Abbah as the key to keep the Portal open and to make Nâm tangible in a way that all theological scriptures in all libraries become useless, incapable to reach the taste of such a splendour.
b) Lets be grateful for such Grace.
a) Yes, In Nâm
—
The Great Spirit
In the same spirit we like to share a second text that Anna wrote after participating in the recent Nâm Silence Retreat that was organised this time specifically for women. As you may know, Anna shares her experience in causal investigation and the stories of her Sardinian tradition every springtime in the Garden of Nâm. She writes: “During the shamanic retreats I met talented people who could enter with openness the shamanic state of consciousness; who could easily make contact with guides, power animals, ancestors etc. In the sharing in soul communication I enjoyed their presence, their stories and their enthusiasm. That led me to wish to introduce them to the ultimate shamanism that happened to me and that reaches the core of the shamanic path.
So I told them that the Great Spirit is not just something abstract and diffuse or a soul imagination. The Great Spirit that I met is a physical person, a concrete and living manifestation that brought Nâm.
I do not know if they could grasp what in words I tried to express to them. What I told them I meant literally and not symbolically, but I am aware of the fact that it is easier to believe in passed ancient masters than in a living manifestation. The effectiveness of the Great Spirit, manifested in physical form, resides in the sharing of all dimensions of Siweb, therefore even in the material dimension. Although attuning to imaginary friends or guides can be creative and psychologically useful, I wish to everyone who is searching, the Grace to meet and recognise the living manifested Great Spirit, the creator of the Garden of Nâm: Yoginâm”.
Sharing in One
And indeed, as a living example, Yoginâm inspires to keep the portal open; to use the senses well, to keep an open mind and to cultivate a spirit that aims at optimally serving life. Living in community means being together but is also means very much being alone. Usually we see this as opposites and identify loneliness with being alone, sometimes even being alone in a crowd. However, with life itself guiding towards optimal living, being alone in silence may lead to a profound realisation:
“Then, my Beloved, I realised
You are all One
What else can I be in You
Then all al-one in One
My loneliness is Your blessing
Sharing in One”
[Yoginâm – 101 Mystical Poems]
