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When is a retreat not a retreat?
Simonthepilgrim
Veteran
I've scaped together my pennies and am going away for a week, next week, from Monday afternoon until Friday afternoon.
A decade ago, I did some work around the Enneagram, a theory of personality types. It coincided with my return to a deep interest in spirituality and practice. The venue was a house in Clifton, near Bristol, which had been a Catholic girls' school and was now a convent and training centre. It is an interesting place. It is also comfortable and warm, with a first-class restaurant! The very opposite of the ascetic retreat house. This is retreat work in the Ignatian model.
Anyway, I have done no formal Enneagram work for five or more years, and the week is called "Depth Enneagram"! I have absolutely no idea what to expect other than the house and the staff themselves, which is draw enough. I plan to use the the time as if I were on retreat with the 'public' sessions as 'points' for discursive meditation in the evening. The early morning, in the chapel, is for silence. There are wonderful gardens, too, both decorative and kitchen produce which always need some weeding. Old Sister Ski will always find me a job that gets me wet, cold and dirty.
For the past fortnight, I have been 'revising' my Enneagram stuff. As always, it has taken me deeper into the extraordinary machinations of my mind.
A decade ago, I did some work around the Enneagram, a theory of personality types. It coincided with my return to a deep interest in spirituality and practice. The venue was a house in Clifton, near Bristol, which had been a Catholic girls' school and was now a convent and training centre. It is an interesting place. It is also comfortable and warm, with a first-class restaurant! The very opposite of the ascetic retreat house. This is retreat work in the Ignatian model.
Anyway, I have done no formal Enneagram work for five or more years, and the week is called "Depth Enneagram"! I have absolutely no idea what to expect other than the house and the staff themselves, which is draw enough. I plan to use the the time as if I were on retreat with the 'public' sessions as 'points' for discursive meditation in the evening. The early morning, in the chapel, is for silence. There are wonderful gardens, too, both decorative and kitchen produce which always need some weeding. Old Sister Ski will always find me a job that gets me wet, cold and dirty.
For the past fortnight, I have been 'revising' my Enneagram stuff. As always, it has taken me deeper into the extraordinary machinations of my mind.
0
Comments
Palzang
Apt words from you. Hope you had a good retreat. More on "Depth Enneagram," I trust will be forthcoming.
Namaste.
There is an article about the Enneagram and Buddhism at
A Buddhist Appreciation of the Enneagram
My particular interest is in how we use the information that we gather from the Enneagram and what for. If it can be an aid to greater awareness, particularly of the Second Noble Truth, in a language that can address non-Buddhists, there could be great value.
I am also being involved in drafting a statement of ethics to be integral to the 'teacher' training.
Lots to do and quite a lot of energy apparently available to get on with it.
And a new quote for my sig!
I'm happy to see you back safe and sound and with so much to keep that great mind of yours busy and productive, Simon. I shall be reading that article tonight and I can't wait to learn more. Thanks for posting the link. If you had any wonderful meals while you were in retreat (what a funny sentence...) let me know. I've had to go all healthy and would love to hear stories about real butter and full fat cream and baked goods with jam.
Much love,
Boo
Hildegarde (with or without a final 'e') is one of the most extraordinary women of any time or tradition, let alone her own 12th century Catholic Germany. I notice that there are vast resources about her on the Net which is far from surprising: she is, in many ways, the patron saint of the feminist movement. This is what Sabina Flanagan of the University of Adelaide writes about her: A very busy woman indeed, whose music, recipes and writings are still in use.
Her music is, to my ears, truly wonderful and has been recorded many times and by very different artists today. There are some clips here:
http://www.healingchants.com/hct.html
It is one of the sad realities of today's Catholic Church. One of its strengths was the possibility for women to make a genuine mark: apart from Hildegarde, I remember Theresa of Avila, Catherine of Siena, Julian of Norwich among others. The lack of this input of anima energy is, perhaps, what is leading the churches into such extreme and 'stuck' positions.
***************
As for the food at Emmaus House, what can I say? Fresh, organic and locally produced. As far as possible grown in their own gardens. Three cooks who have been with the community for many years and whose skills were honed around Europe before ending up in Bristol: a Frenchman, a Spaniard and an Englishman. Vegetarian and meat meals are both just as carefully and creatively prepared, although the idea of a 'diet' is probably the last thing they worry about. 'Special diets' are treated with great respect rather than as a nuisance which makes a change. When I have chosen to reduce my food intake, there is no argument or fuss: they work with the community and its needs, both physical and spiritual, so that even those who are fasting can join the tables with their peers.
*****************
It was a real joy to return to a community that I had known so well and, after nearly a decade, to find that the basic day-to-day rhythms remain the same, although both wonderful dogs have now left for the sunnier pastures of the long reward and Sister Ski is getting very frail at 80.
Change and decay in all around I see
O Thou that changest not, abide with me.
I must have come across her in my studies, probably when I was in Wales because I did more Medieval work in Wales than anything else. I stuck pretty closely to Britain and a bit of France and Italy but did very little on Germany. It's so exciting to have something new to learn about in my favourite historical period! I just know I'm going to get those chills I used to get when studying something fascinating.
Your retreat sounds lovely and I can't wait to hear more about the Enneagram work you did as I am so unfamiliar with it. I wish I could have had you as a professor (as we call all university lecturers in N. America) while I was in university. Then again, I've learned so much from you that I can well consider you my long distance prof as well as a major influence in my life.
Love,
Boo
You do seem to have a lot of energy, Simon.
Sounds like you're gotten past all the "difficulties" you were experiencing in 2006.
Yes?
-bf
They do seem to have passed, internally, although nothing has changed externally. Perhaps there is a lesson there.
Excellent!
-bf
The Enneagram! Ah yes. You can find loads about it on the Net. Basically,
it is a system of personality typing, similar to that proposed by Jung and
refined in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). Some claim that it has
very ancient roots, Sufi or, even, Church 'Fathers' or earlier. I find that
rather sweet, touching and funny, like a child inventing themselves famous
ancestors or the current passion for genealogy.
The "ennea" bit of the name means, quite simply, "nine": there are nine suggested
types which are schematised according to a diagram which may have been elaborated
by Gurdjieff. I do wonder why anyone would want to claim him as progenitor.
He was a particularly eccentric individual and may have hidden graet wisdom
behind that moustache - but he hid it very well LOL. The nearest I can get
to facts is that a Bolivian philosopher called Oscar Ichazo began teaching
something like this (which he called the "Enneagon") in the '50s and '60s.
The teachings were secretive, as was the habit at the time. Primal Scream
Therapy was similar in refusing to publish precise details. Ichazo always
refused to reveal where he got the notion from and rejected the Gurdjieff
connection. One of Ichazo's trainees, Claudio Naranjo, a Chilean, having
done part of Ichazo's training, went off to Esalen and developed his own
elaboration of the system. It is in this 'lineage' that I got my first introduction.
Some recent work by a Ph.D. student over here suggests that the self-diagnostic
technique of the Narrative Tradition may be more accurate than the questionnaire
approach, which doesn't surprise me in the least (More about this a bit later).
In the Enneagram system, each individual can be identified as a particular
type. Whilst this sounds limiting, and may be for some people, each type,
whilst 'driven' by the same basic passion will express it in individual ways
which remain consistent with people of the same type. Thus, as an analogy,
an Appalachian farmer may not understand what a Californian is saying but
both can be described as speakers of English.
As with all such systems, arising as it does out of a number of traditions
and disciplines, there are factions and arguments. As I understand it, there
are those, like Hudson and Risso, who think that a person's type can be determined
by questionnaire. Alternatively, there are those, like Helen Palmer, who
believe that this can be elicited from the person's own 'story', which she
calls the Narrative Tradition.
I had read Helen Palmer's first book when it was published over here - and
had disliked it intensely. I have a deep aversion to labelling people and,
in particular, to being labelled or typed myself. It was a dear and now-deceased
friend who persuaded me to go with her to Emmaus House in Bristol where Enneagram
courses were being run. That was nearly 10 years ago. I went on courses and
retreats. I read and meditated and found useful insights from the model.
Then I stopped going because it all got 'professionalised', with big name
teachers, like Helen Palmer, and formal training, etc., and the cost went
out of my reach. In addition, I was bored with the drive towards more and
more 'qualifications'.
I stayed in touch with Emmaus House, however, and was sent their 2007 programme.
When I saw a workshop called "Depth Enneagram", held on weekdays and not
too expensive, I decided that it might be a good way to kick-start me: I
have been slow to get working for some time. I met up again with people with
whom I had worked years earlier, although it took us some days to remember!
I used the meditation and prayer spaces as well as the group sessions. I
even facilitated a craft workshop one afternoon. impromptu, because I wanted
to get my hands dirty and make something after all the thinking.
The result has been a sense of renewal, of refreshment, plus some suggested
contributions that I could make along the lines of the Enneagram's place
in a Buddhist practice.
Palzang
If you've never listened to Peter Murphy... you should give it a shot.
-bf
I took six different online Enneagram tests from different sites and my results were always the same; I came out mostly #9 with some #5 for good measure. I found it pretty precise and I'm mulling it over. It was interesting.
Self-identification is the surest way to arrive at a personal type.
I am in the process of writing a piece on how I use the Enneagram which I can send you if you like. There is much to mull over, isn't there.
P.S. I sent you some mp3s of Hildegarde's music by email. Did you get them?