At the Escape the World Retreat, there is an optional day of silence beginning the second day, so I jumped on board willingly. Why not? No family to nag me with constant updates on every world happening, no emails to check, no Facebook status to update —— wait, NO FACEBOOK for 24 hours?
I’m happy to tell you I survived the day without experiencing too much withdrawal, though I absentmindedly reached for my phone quite a few times. During the day of silence, we did two hours of morning yoga, had all meals served on our balconies and enjoyed a variety of spa treatments, wrapping up the evening with 90 more minutes of silent yoga at sunset. I spent the day painting, reading the Bible & Tozer and writing in my journal. It was really tough not to blog or do work-related projects knowing I had a whole free day, but I suspect that was exactly what Iyan was trying to teach us. I could use about 365 more days of silence to break the constant need to work… but this one day was nice nonetheless.
Shhhh! Table for one!
The next morning, we awoke to the bells at 4:30 a.m. for an hourlong drive to Mount Batur, an active volcano northeast of Ubud. When we arrived at the restaurant-turned-yoga studio facing the peak, it was so dark we couldn’t see anything. Once in a while, lightning would dramatically illuminate the volcano from behind, but other than that, it was just blackness and shrill rooster crows.As we moved through the yoga poses, the lightning storm cleared and the most beautiful sunrise began to peek over the volcanoes. With the sun’s arrival, we soon discovered we were surrounded by mountains, ancient calderas and active, smoking volcanoes.
Hello, volcano!
It was the most beautiful way to wrap our 24 hours of silence, and once yoga ended, we sat down for breakfast to chatter about the happenings of the past day. You wouldn’t believe how talkative people get after being quiet for such a short amount of time!
Yoga buddies, finally on speaking terms
Up next… Why I Have No Business Riding A Bike
