Breitenbush Retreat: Advancing Forward In Peace

 

 

Tell a conservative baby boomer man about a Breitenbush Retreat and expect to hear:

 

1. Yeah, sure, we did it all back in college.

2. Sure, it’s all about whatever.

3. What? Oh sure.

 

The idea of a retreat is foreign to them now that they’ve hit the years that aren’t so kind.

 

You might even hear, “We thought about going to a nude beach once, but turned around once we got a good look.”

 

Are they missing the point of a Breitenbush Retreat? Completely.

 

You don’t get a bugle call for this retreat. It’s not the cavalry here in full battle gear. Instead, it’s the opposite.

 

A Breitenbush Retreat is about gearing up by shedding the modern world, assessing what you need, than taking that with you.

 

After you make a reservation you show up and get assigned a cabin. Call it a hillbilly shack or miner’s cabin with a sink and radiator along with the bed in one room.

 

You can stay in a cabin with a bathroom, or not and use the public toilet near the cabins.

 

 

Everything is optional, from the geo-thermal sauna, soaking pools, or spiral tubs. Many out buildings between the cabins and the lodge offer a quiet moment to reflect and stretch out.

 

Once you put your hands on the ground in one of the out buildings you feel the warmth generated by low grade volcanic activity. No lava, just a warmth of belonging.

 

And that’s the goal, finding a feeling of belonging somewhere. If you find it at Breitenbush you’ve on the right track.

 

Swimwear and clothing are optional in the water areas and trails connecting them. And here’s the odd thing: talking and listening naked is easier than talking and listening with clothes on.

 

Go figure.

 

If you decide to go with no clothes, and why not, people with swimsuits seem out of place. A couple, the man with a swimsuit, the woman without, seemed an odd match. If one, why not the other?

 

And it doesn’t matter one way or the other.

 

You get used to seeing the human form in all of it’s configurations in the soaking pools. After a while it seems normal, and that’s the big part of a Breitenbush Retreat. A new normal.

 

The cabins have a one way lock. Once you go inside you can lock the door. But not when you leave. No keys.

 

Even the curtains seem unnecessary after enough time without clothes in what passes as public in the sauna and pool areas. Someone looking in? Why would they bother.

 

Finally to the most interesting part of the Breitenbush Retreat, the lodge and dining room.

 

Every day the staff there serves three meals. The usual three in all of their organic splendor. And it’s an eat all you want buffet of goodness. No pork sausage to worry you, no red meat to alarm you.

 

Also no coffee, booze, or weed. After a day you join a calm those around you share. You’re not getting robbed or assaulted, poisoned or lost.

 

What you’re getting is a shared sense of belonging that isn’t advertised in the literature.

 

No golf course. No mountain to ski, river to raft, or rock wall to climb. Just you and your senses taking a break from the world we’ve all grown accustomed to. Hurry up and get done yesterday what you were supposed to have done the day before? No problem.

 

Check on everything that worries you? No worries in a Breitenbush Retreat since you can’t get online or call anywhere. Once you’re there, you’re there. If you stay calm during the first few hours things start to slow down and sink in.

 

You are good as you are. You’re not too big, not too small, not too rich or poor, fit or fat. It’s just you as you are with others working toward the same goal.

 

The big take away from a Breitenbush Retreat is applying a certain serenity to moments in everyday life. Things are crazy and out of control, but that’s not the memory you leave with.

 

 

Extra head space absorbs the shock of the new, and the world we share brings something new way more often than years past. Instead, the old world of agreed upon restrictions shifts to another gear, and it’s not a down shift.

 

For every hard charger, a Breitenbush Retreat re-charges. For every master of the universe, the world of Breitenbush expands the view.

 

To the baby boomers and millennials who feel it’s not their thing to drive into the woods and think how they live, it can’t hurt to take inventory.

 

The best age to show up is mid-forties. That way you’ll see a population consisting of where you’ve been, where you are, and where you’re going.

 

A Breitenbush Retreat shows which two you can change, and which one you can’t.

 

Plan accordingly.