TRANQUILLITY BASES : Not Far From the Fast Lane, Southern California Retreats Offer Spiritual Oases for Rest and Reflection
“THAT INWARD eye,” Wordsworth called it, “which is the bliss of solitude.”
A poet understands the meaning of a personal retreat, of the occasional need to abandon civilization for a time of private
self-examination and spiritual renewal. In 20th-Century Los Angeles, virtually everyone at some time has experienced the feeling of being overwhelmed by life, when the world seems to be spinning a little too fast. Everyone, too, has felt the need to escape, to find a secluded place to be alone with one’s thoughts for a few hours or days.
It is the nature of man to seek the most profound answers about the world by withdrawing from it, an instinct perhaps as old as time. Monasticism, the ultimate expression of the idea, has existed for centuries in nearly every religion, beginning with Chinese shamans at least a millennium before Christ. On a less extreme scale, many Western religions today offer their members organized retreats of a day or more, a tradition formalized in the 16th Century by St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, in his Spiritual Exercises, a 30-day program of meditation and prayer.
Spiritual renewal, of course, is hardly the exclusive province of religion. Thoreau’s two-year excursion to Walden Pond “to front only the essential facts of life” is perhaps only the most famous example of a secular retreat.
For most people these days, though, spending two years in the woods is problematic. Fortunately, there are alternatives. On the following pages are just a few of the dozens of retreats scattered around Southern California. They represent the several types available and were chosen in particular for their beauty, their sense of serenity and isolation, and their emphasis on spiritual reflection. Many retreats are owned by formal religious groups but often are made available to non-members, who are invited to use them without pressure to convert. Those who seek them out come for many reasons: some to contemplate, some to heal, others merely to rest.
The retreats are psychic and emotional sanctuaries, small eddies that seem almost out of place in the swirl of modern life. They should not be confused with resorts or even vacation hideaways, however. Accommodations are often utilitarian at best--no TVs in every room, no tennis courts, no nightly entertainment. These are, instead, spas of the spirit, and they trade in a much rarer commerce: tranquillity and introspection.
SELF-REALIZATION FELLOWSHIP RETREAT
Where there is peace and meditation, there is neither anxiety nor doubt.
--St. Francis of Assisi
THE FOCAL POINT OF the Self-Realization retreat is the pristine, immaculately landscaped meditation gardens, perched along the dramatic bluffs overlooking the ocean in Encinitas, north of San Diego. While the surf crashes below, gentle streams meander through flower gardens that seem as carefully tended as bonsai, spilling into small fish ponds of noble orange and white koi .
Meditation, which the gardens are meant to inspire, is the basic teaching of the Self-Realization Fellowship, a non-sectarian religion that instructs its followers in specific techniques of meditating as a way to know God, whatever that concept means to each person. It is a way, says co-administrator Jeffrey Quillin, to “interiorize your consciousness enough that you might feel what is in every single human being, that divine spark, which is joy itself.”
The 17-acre site was once a hermitage of Paramahansa Yogananda, the movement’s founder, built in 1936 as a gift to the Indian yogi from a wealthy follower. Today, it is home to a monastic order of 30 monks and nuns, who walk the grounds in olive green tunics and sari-like gowns. The 20 guest rooms are arranged around a small, two-story courtyard and magnolia tree. They are furnished simply, with a bed, desk and shared baths, with a suggested donation of $40 per night.
Although the monastery welcomes everyone, most guests are members of Self-Realization, so taking part in the daily organized meditations requires some knowledge of the group’s methods. Also, Quillin says, “We generally practice silence in the compound among the retreatants. So anyone can just walk outside their room and sit and think; no one’s going to come and strike up a conversation. It’s truly amazing the rest and rejuvenation a person gets in a couple of days of doing very little talking.”
It may also help to remind people of their priorities when they leave. “A person should take a retreat every week, every day, and even every hour,” Quillin says, “in the sense of, ‘Wait a minute, let’s get off the treadmill, let’s just step back, let’s look inside, let’s remember what life is really about.’ ”
MOUNT CALVARY
Contemplation is the highest expression of man’s
intellectual and spiritual life. It is that life itself,
fully awake, fully active, fully aware that it is alive.
--Thomas Merton
THE MOUNT CALVARY EPISCOPAL monastery may be the most beautiful retreat in Southern California. It rests on 20 acres of striking Santa Barbara real estate, high in the hills above the city, and has a majestic view of the winding coastline. The monastery is a dark, cool, mission-style ranch house with hardwood floors, eclectically appointed with heavy, carved-wood furniture and reproductions of medieval and early Renaissance art.
The retreat is run by four members of the Order of the Holy Cross, in the Benedictine tradition. Like other Catholic and Episcopalian retreats, it is meant to be a place of spiritual rejuvenation and is open to everyone. “We feel that people in general need a place where they can come and escape the cares of the ordinary world and get in touch with themselves and reality,” says Brother Lary Pearce.
Guests are welcome to join the five chapel services each day, which the monks attend. Guests also dine with the monks. While breakfast is often eaten in silence, lunch and dinner are not, “so there is ample opportunity to talk with the guests,” Pearce says. Spiritual guidance is available.
The monks ask for a donation of $30 per day for room and meals.
LAS BRISAS
Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
LEE COIT IS STANDING in one of his favorite spots, a secluded promontory on the side of a hill with a sweeping view of the valley below. “This is what California used to look like, before we paved it all over,” he says. Indeed, from certain vantage points of the Las Brisas retreat in Wildomar, a few miles south of Lake Elsinore in Riverside County, it isn’t hard to imagine the days of land grants: rolling hills blanketed with native grasses and shrubs, studded with stands of twisted oaks.
Coit is a friendly, soft-spoken man with a somewhat metaphysical bent, a former Oregon advertising executive who sold his agency 12 years ago and went off to “find out what life is all about.” He traveled, came to California and raced sailboats, wrote and published a book, “Listening,” about how to listen to your “inner guide,” your voice of intuition. It has sold several thousand copies around the world and has become the motivating philosophy behind the retreat, in operation only since the first of the year.
Las Brisas, Coit says, should be a place where people can listen to those long-dormant inner voices. “What I’d like to have happen is for people to really try to get in touch with themselves, their own spiritual insights, whatever that is, in whatever way,” he says. “That’s my dream for all this.”
Coit’s retreat, therefore, is free of distractions. The house can only be reached by several miles of bumpy dirt road, and the four guest rooms ($55 for a private room, $45 to share) can be small to the point of being cramped. Coit and his son, James, are the only staff, so guests help make their own meals and wash their own dishes.
There is also precious little to do except watch the meadow hawks, go hiking, get to know the other guests or maybe sit in the hot tub and gaze at the stars at night. “That shocks people,” Coit admits. “It’s not for someone who wants to have a vacation. I think it’s hard to get used to, just to be alone, be by yourself. One of the reasons we keep busy is that we don’t want to face ourselves, to sit down and have a good talk with ourselves. We figure we’re going to find something we don’t like, but the opposite’s true.”
MEADOWLARK
When from our better selves we have too long
Been parted by the hurrying world, and droop,
Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired,
How gracious, how benign, is Solitude.
--William Wordsworth
OFTEN, WHEN guests come to Meadowlark for the first time, “they don’t know what it’s all about,” says Dr. Evarts Loomis, the 72-year-old physician who founded the center. “But they take in the fact that people care about them.” Indeed, the atmosphere at Meadowlark is nearly maternal; the emphasis is on emotional and psychological pampering. “We’re here to support people,” says administrator Dorothy Soar.
Meadowlark is an elegant country idyll near Hemet, about two hours southeast of Los Angeles. It has 20 acres of expansive lawns, ancient shade trees and garden paths. Loomis established Meadowlark in 1957 as one of the first holistic health centers in the country; recently, however, Loomis decided to change its focus to “spiritual growth.”
Meadowlark’s program follows no particular doctrine or dogma, other than an interest in the physical and mental health of its guests, who range from their early 20s to their 80s. Almost all come alone. Many are here just for peace and quiet; others are in the midst of an emotional crisis.
“A lot of people come here because they’re sitting on the fence of decision making, either about their careers or relationships,” says co-director Jean Jerome. “And it’s so fearful to make that change. People need to be supported in that.”
To that end, Meadowlark’s guests are invited to a group meeting every morning after breakfast, where they discuss dream interpretation and share entries in personal journals. Soar says that guests are encouraged to stay at least one week, usually from Sunday to Sunday, with rates from $615 to $750 per week. The price includes excellent, mostly vegetarian meals, daily exercise, yoga and meditation sessions, workshops and activities such as hiking or bicycling.
Or you may just want to lie like a slug by the pool for a week.
“There’s not going to be anyone tapping at your door and saying, ‘But you must get into yourself,’ ” Soar says. “I think a lot of people just come here to get away. People need to have someone to listen to them.”
HOLY SPIRIT RETREAT CENTER
Calm Soul of all things! make it mine
To feel, amid the city’s jar,
That there abides a peace of thine,
Man did not make, and can not mar.
--Matthew Arnold
PERHAPS THE MOST remarkable thing about the Holy Spirit retreat is its location, set down like an paradox in the middle of Encino in a well-to-do neighborhood. It’s one-half mile south of Ventura Boulevard but 1 million miles from L.A. The serene 10-acre compound is run by the Sisters of Social Service, a Catholic order. But everyone is welcome, and there are few signs of sectarian religion.
The retreat’s purpose, says Sister Patricia McCarthy, is “to give people a place and a time to be able to reflect on their own inner journey. We don’t see ourselves as having the emphasis on just the man / God relationship, but more the inner healing and on people’s relationship with one another.”
The Sisters of Social Service built the complex in 1959 as a novitiate, but converted it to a retreat 10 years later. Guests come, McCarthy says, “for a sense of peace, a sense of permanence. Usually the first time, people are in some sort of pain.” Although professional counseling isn’t available, staff members will offer “spiritual direction” or just lend a sympathetic ear.
The center is also popular with many 12-step recovery programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous, and, of course, with church groups. Holy Spirit’s 24 plain but comfortable rooms, with dormitory-style bathrooms and showers, are $50 a night, including meals. The grounds are lush with oaks and pines, roses and birds of paradise, fruit trees, isolated garden paths, even a small duck pond near the back of the property.
“We encourage individuals to feel free if they are in the area to just come up and spend a couple of hours,” McCarthy says. “People feel at home here.”