Last year I took an online meditation course through a veterinary website. To be honest, 99% of the reason that I took the course was because it was called, “Achieving Brilliant Sanity” and I wanted a certificate that said that I had achieved that.
The course taught mindfulness meditation. After the 10 week course was over there were weekly online meetings you could go to and a yearly in person retreat. I ended up going to the retreat in July.
I knew this was the place for me when I saw the schedule. It started with yoga at 7:30 AM and said Retire at 8 PM. That was my kind of schedule. Inbetween there were lectures on the theme of forgiveness this year. I don’t have a big issue with that but I decided to go anyway for the multiple meditation sessions each day.
It turned out that each of the speakers (unbeknownst to each other) had planned to talk about the same book.
The Sunflower tells the story of a German soldier who wants forgiveness from a random Jewish prisoner before he dies. He doesn’t grant it. The second half of the book consists of essays from prominent people with their opinions on what he should have done.
I haven’t finished it yet. It a very short book but I want to take it slowly and think about each person’s answer.
The heading picture is one that I used when we had an art break. The instructor planned for us to do watercolor sunflowers. This was also not coordinated with the speakers who were discussing the book. We very much had a theme for the weekend.
It was a very relaxing weekend with a small group of other veterinarians, discussing deep issues, meditating, and making friends. I hope to be able to go back next year.
