ja_mageia

The decision to retire from my present role at One Spirit Interfaith Foundation later this year has come as a surprise to some - and it has been coming for a long time.

My heart and soul are drawn ever-more strongly towards living-at-the-edge as the wandering contemplative, the silver nomad, the urban hermit, and the mystic writer. This is where I am going now. These are the ‘Siren Songs’ of simplicity, stillness, silence, solitude, sacredness, sexuality, sagacity, sensuality, service, and surrender,

Looking back, there are always signs in the sand to be seen. I used to claim that I would stop working on the last day of the twentieth century. That day came and went and I did indeed reduce the professional workload. In 2007 I wrote an article on Retirement Beckons. The seminary training had led me into a far healthier balance of heart and body with mind. Then came the opportunity to offer my skills to the Foundation as community facilitator in 2008. The Type 3 Enneagram ego-mind revelled in re-engaging once again in tasks and projects, budgets and spreadsheets, ideas and solutions, goals and deadlines. Yet now I notice how the heart groans and resists each morning: “not more of this, please – it no longer serves – let it go – fall into what your truly desire”. There is little inner energy, no juice, to sustain working any longer.

Through the upheavals of the last 30 months, I have loosened or let go of many attachments: a large house that required constant maintenance; physical possessions that no longer serve a purpose; and responsibilities in Yorkshire that are now far less onerous. It is time now to release this persistent attachment to work and earning. The soul craves freedom.

I depart shortly for an extended sojourn in Asia where I suspect this next transition will take root. In May, I participate in a guided Death Lodge where I plan to lay down all that is fulfilled and unfulfilled in my professional career. In June, I shall be a teaching elder and a wilderness elder on the Men’s Rites of Passage. There are the annual celebrations of Convocation and Ordination in the summer. In September, I am co-leading a week on Natural Beings. There will be Gay Spirit retreats to lead. Freya has asked me to join her in leading retreats into the emptying silence of the Saharan Desert in Morocco (any takers?).  And in November, close family and friends are joining me for a birthday week in some Majorcan villas.

Thank you for all your messages of support about this transition. I shall follow this path and watch with interest where it leads.  Rejoice with me!