WEEK 22 MASTER KEY EXPERIENCE + unplugged

I was in Oregon again this week for work, (might be done with red eyes for a while!). Thinking of how to incorporate a 3-day silent retreat into my life, I arrived home Thursday evening, and a big snow storm was coming.

Raining all day Thursday, it didn’t seem possible, but by 5am schools were cancelled and the wet snow had arrived; 10am we lost power. Then giving up on a work day as even my colleagues in Virginia had lost power due to high winds, we shifted to emergency mode. Collecting batteries and candles, we luckily have a wood stove which heats much of the house. I told the kids I would finish my Master Key morning readings and then I would do one thing with each of them alone.

Agnes wanted to make Kheer (Indian rice pudding); she crushed cardamom pods that Scott had brought from Hong Kong last year, we stirred everything into a pot and cooked it on the wood stove. The best!

Clare wanted me to watch a show that she and William were practicing in the front window which included singing and dress-up.

William wanted me to play Mastermind board game with him which we did as he got some sisterly assistance in being the code maker with the bright little pegs.

Biggest house issue we had was no power so no water pump and no water. Scott was outside trying to get a generator he found in the one shed to work.

For dinner, we cooked local German sausages on the wood stove, and we heated butternut squash boats with melty mozzarella plus some Borage micro greens from our CSA. A real moment lit with candles in the center of the table.

It is now 1pm on Saturday and still no power. I’m pecking this away from my phone in the Home Depot parking lot. Two kids are napping and Scott is inside with Agnes looking for a plug piece for the generator.

It is not 3 days of silence, but it has been very nice to have the quiet. No cell phones, no movies, just us on the farm. You don’t need much I realized when you have each other. Happy to be home and together!

Namaste!