“In the pond floats a Lotus Flower, with green leaves, white petals and golden pistil, beautiful and noble as ever…”
We’re back from our Winter Retreat to South East Asia, three glorious, sunny weeks away in Thailand and Vietnam, from Bangkok to Chaing Mai and Phuket, over to Hanoii and Da Nang, and finally down to Saigon to celebrate the Lunar New Year and welcome the Year of the Snake 2025. A bit of a whirlwind before, during, and now two weeks after, just riding a wild transformational wave that started with my Teacher Shinzen Young’s Year-End/Beginning Retreat, the very source of inspiration behind The Higher Haven. Happy to be home now, we even participated in the February monthly Home Practice Program lead by the mighty Shin.
Resting and rejuvenating now during Winter’s serene season, we’ll be delivering on promised posts from way back in November, including the healing power of the lightning strike, what we’ll see in the stars above during the March Lunar Eclipse, our upcoming Dark Sky Event, and a long, long overdue tale on my friend Tinker — a real live poet, writer and Lac du Flambeau Ojibwe Elder. Tinker’s cool, a great source of inspiration, and although we may be a few days late, we’re never a dong (or unit of Vietnamese currency) short. There’s also new and amazing plans being made for a Higher Haven East, dedicated to my Mom and our heavenly matriarch Louise Teresa Wrobel Tootalian. We celebrated her in rituals during the first full Moon of the Lunar New Year, and her presence in our efforts remains strong. So if you’re one of the many rattled by current happenings in Mý, the Viet people’s term for the good old U.S.A., with the backing of our Sweet Louise, we’ll soon provide you a secret, sacred Getaway, a place that brings together meditation and indigenous healing practices of the West with similar practices in the East, back to their point of origin, in a huge healing circle.
That’s all wildly exciting, and as to finding and founding our farm in the East, a few years and visits up our Good Red Road. So for now, we’ll touch back on our wonderful three weeks away. Having written of tot (good) times in Vietnam previously, experiences with my good friends or bans Tuan and the secret Viet King Phuc Nguyen, my trip this year provided a deeper healing and a new awareness of how VN’s vibe informs the spiritual practices of The Higher Haven West (Tuyệt vời) A famous Vietnamese folk poem states: “In the pond floats a lotus flower, with green leaves, white petals and golden pistil, beautiful as ever, such beauty, such nobility, growing from mud, but rising with pride & honor.”
The lotus flower, with its stunning petals and serene presence, is an aquatic plant of slow-flowing, muddy waters native to regions throughout East Asia and the South Pacific. Known scientifically as Nymphaea, the lotus has inspired poets and artist’s throughout Vietnam’s history. A symbol of purity and enlightenment, this hardy plant reflects the ability to be noble, courageous, and stand tall in the darkest of circumstances, like the good Vietnamese people, circumstances the people of Mỹ may now face. “'And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom”, said the artist Anaïs Nin. For those ready to bloom this Spring, take a giant, healing leap into our Spring Noble Silence Meditation Retreat (NSMR) Weekend, just two short months away. And watch for more stories, events, engaging techniques from the brilliant mind of Shinzen, and more good news soon. Toksha