As I prepare to leave for a few days on silent retreat, I am reminded of the excerpt of a beautiful poem a friend recently shared with me. Being on retreat is an extremely rare opportunity to step outside of life and its social norms, busyness and obligations. I don't take for granted that I am able to do this and realize this may be the last time I go in a long while; for all these reasons and more, I am extremely grateful. See you on the other side. -MO

And I have felt

A presence that disturbs me with the joy

Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime

Of something far more deeply interfused,

Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,

And the round ocean and the living air,

And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;

A motion and a spirit, that impels

All thinking things, all objects of all thought,

And rolls through all things.

- William Wordsworth