The retreat “MY PATH”

Some are afraid to touch this subject

Some do not even want to hear of it

It does not occur to some

Some prefer to think that it is not a method

A historical note.

In the East it is customary to leave your usual environment (home, city) at those key moments of life when you feel a need for change. Or when a lot of tiredness has built up and life starts to “spin its wheels”, to “go round in circles”. Or when you need to find the right decision, to choose from several attractive possibilities.

In solitude, in nature (mostly in the mountains), a person comes into a different state – calmer, expanded in the space of options and in time. In some countries it is possible to spend a few weeks in a monastery without any conditions.

The person returns with a ready decision: how to go on living, how to build himself, how to set his relationships right, which landmarks to keep in view.

Some look for the price here, and some take it for free

The retreat is a non-commercial event. Each participant is responsible for their own equipment, buys their own food and pays for their own travel to the meeting point. The organisational fee of 300 UAH in advance and 400 UAH on the spot is a voluntary contribution to the development of the retreat movement.

Some meet their shadow here

Some have to find out here who I am not

Some look here for their other half

Some go through an initiation into a new status

Throughout the retreat the participants do not talk to one another. Emergency communication with the leader is by written messages.

At the start of the day and in the evening the participants will be given sticks with questions (individually, two questions a day).

The answers to these questions will focus you on attention to yourself and help you solve the tasks that you bring with you or find on the way.

The route: from Syanky over the Uzhok Pass and the Runa meadow to Svalyava.

Movement is at a slowed-down pace: no more than 5–10 km a day, and every step can be a conscious one.

The retreat lasts from 19 to 27 March.

A meeting in Lviv on 19.03. checking equipment, a briefing, checking readiness and logistics.

The first day is preparatory. The last day is the exit from the retreat and the integration of the experience.

In the middle of the route there is a stationary camp, and for 3 days each person will be able to go off into the mountains for any distance without extra gear (radial routes) and arrange individual practices for themselves (meditative, extreme, in pairs).

If the participants wish, they will be offered, individually, evolutionary techniques – those that best help solve the task the participant has set.

Some come here to choose their new image

Some choose a name for their child here

Some decide here to start a new business

Some close their smarting wounds

Some finish what no longer has any meaning

I watch the sun go down. Old hurts come back to mind, words once unsaid are spoken. Before my eyes rise the faces of those I have lost for ever. Tears run down my cheeks. A sound like a howl rises from my chest. I whimper, my chin shakes. At last I collapse into sobs, and after them the body explodes in a cry of despair and disagreement with how it was. I growl, my body fights an invisible monster. And suddenly silence comes crashing down. It is all over. I fall to the ground and lie without moving. It is already dark. Emptiness – that is my name. I go back to my tent and wrap myself in my sleeping bag. In a few minutes I am warm and cosy, as if I were at home. Mum kisses my forehead. I feel good and calm.

Below – clouds. There, in the valley, everything is misty. Here, above – complete clarity. A bright day, the mountain ridges visible far away. If I am high up, I can be clear, seeing. I can know my path. Thank you, world!

Dawn. I watch the colours of the morning palette come out onto the stage of the theatre. The summit lights up in crimson, scarlet and orange. The outlines of the mountains flare up in gold and cadmium. A spectrum of ideas comes into my head: about how to begin living in many colours, in perspective, in sharp outlines, in blending watercolour shades and contrasting acrylic tones. And a certainty in my chest – like a deep breath of the new day. As if a new canvas has been primed. And my hands are like a master’s brushes. I draw with my hands on the sky. I dance a new canvas, where there are I, and the world, and the people dear to me.

From an interview with the author, Edmund Shchebalsky

We began holding retreats about 20 years ago. At first they were 3–7-day explorations of oneself: extreme, silent, without food, barefoot, for continuous movement, for the search for a path.

One of the outstanding retreats was a 40-day master retreat. It took place at a height of 1300 m. We greeted the dawn above a sea of clouds, reached upward, meditated, did developmental practices. As a result the participants gave birth to new lives. I, for example, created an evolutionary direction in psychology and founded the SNEP centre.

Now I see the need for retreats as a source of peace, inspiration, motivation to discover the new, to energise life. I can’t imagine myself without such events fewer than 4 times a year. Sometimes (in one capacity or another) I have up to 10 retreats in a year.

Some feel unable to decide

Some imagine that a great teacher is needed

Some hear themes of esotericism here

For some it is important that there should be a lot of the East here

The retreat is best suited to:

Students who want to decide on the choice of a path;

Masters ready to create an author’s direction of their own;

Those whom the doctors have given up on (the person is healthy, but something torments him);

Those whom trainings and psychologists do not help;

Those who need an initiation into the new.

How does the retreat “My Path” differ from other paths of development and change?

The independence of the participants;

The coaching approach (everyone has their own resource);

The position of trust in the inner wisdom of the participants;

Its ecological character, outer and inner silence;

It is not a strict retreat in which a master requires you to carry out techniques;

It is not a hike in which a crowd is organised with planned movement, shared food and the tall tales of the pack leader;

It is not a training in which there is a teaching of methods, shared goals and a mandatory measurable result;

Some use this time to restore themselves

Some get rid of burnout

Some lose weight and/or fast

Some write a book about what matters most

I realised that it is not work that tires me but myself.

I want a child. And I am ready.

I know what it is to climb to your own summit.

My path. I am walking. Who will stop me?

Everyone answers for themselves. You can learn from others, imitate or refute. Nothing changes. We walk the earth. This is the stream of life.

You can bail out, you can stay. You can see what you started through to the end. You can devalue your decision. You can find a miracle in every step.

I found out that I am multidimensional. Like the world around me.

I wrote a collection of poems.

I found an ending, a finale for my article.

My back pains went away

My knees were healed.

I began to breathe with my whole chest

I had not felt so alive and energetic for a long time

As if I had the power of all this nature, these mountains and streams

The best way to describe it is with the word “inexpressible”

Some sum up their past life

Some talk to someone who has died

Some communicate with someone who is not yet born

Some ask forgiveness from those they have hurt

I took a lot of food, but I drank only living water. The water gave me strength. Melted snow, spring water, from brooks and streams – it is ringing, tasty, fragrant, nourishing. I had the idea of losing weight, and I did not make use of it. I simply felt good with the water. In the end I shed 8 kg of surplus food and 8 kg of my body’s surplus weight.

All my life I have been rushing and never getting anything done in time. Here I slowed down, and it turned out there was a great deal of time. And there is no need to keep up any more: everything comes by itself. I understood: I have only my time. Only my life, and I will always have enough time to live it fully.

T. said it was important for her to break out of the circumstances that were choking her. As for me, people do not leave society here. They do not run away from problems. Here they come back to themselves. I got back the states of inspiration and lightness. I am like a child, or a young girl, and with my experience and mind it is great fun to be in these young energies. I am as if in a stream, and it carries me effortlessly. And I watch, and sometimes slightly change the position of my body, I suppose? And the world responds at once, and adjusts to carry out my whim.

I understood that I am the only value. Only I create the world around me, see what I see, perceive what comes. I relate to it somehow. I choose how to react: to think, to interpret, to go deeper into the feelings or to wave them away. To go into the experiences or to distance myself. I am always at the centre of a whirlpool of events, or I am a star above the ocean. What did the retreat give me? I got my value back, found my energy, became big.

For those who have decided:

The rules of the retreat “My Path”:

1. We do not talk.
2. Everyone walks alone;
3. Everyone has their own equipment, fully ensuring survival (a tent, gas, dishes, food, a sleeping bag, clothes, footwear).
4. Special signals mark the time for gathering, setting out, stopping.
5. There is a shared fire at the end of the day.
6. There is an option to go off into your own retreat (the green triangle).
7. There is the right to leave the group (the red circle).
8. We walk slowly and consciously.
9. We cover 5–10 km a day.
10. The places are uninhabited.
11. Everyone has a map with the route.

To take part in the retreat you must apply by tel. 096-3377199, 097-4151497, 050-0136686, 093-6903994 or e-mailsnepevo@mail.ru

Sort out whatever is unclear, check that you have the equipment (a list will be sent by e-mail), pay the organisational fee (if you wish).

Applications are accepted until 15 March.