Finding Your Way: An Homage to the Omega Institute

I first went to the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies when I was 40.

I signed up for the Memoir in Buddhist Practice workshop, but I really went there to get lost in the woods.

It was what I kept saying, that I wanted just to get lost in the woods and see if I could find my way out. Midlife felt that way, like being in the middle of nowhere with no path and no clue, and I wanted to make the metaphor come alive, and see how I would fare in the real woods.

Since I had no experience roughing it, aside from reading books about others’ journeys into the wild (some of which didn’t go so well,) I settled for a tent cabin at an upscale retreat center in Rhinebeck. A friend I ran into on the train, a slow funny Southern guy who hadn’t cut the hair on his head or his beard in decades, scoffed at me and my many bags when I said proudly how I was going camping.

“Oh yeah,” he drawled, “I see you’re really travelin’ light…”

“Ok,” I said, “I’m working on it.”

When I got to Omega, the reservationist smiled when told her I was there for my birthday, and how I’d really wanted just to go into the woods but…

“People tend to find what they’re looking for here,” she said with a knowing smile, kind of like Dr. Roarke from Fantasy Island.

When the evening program was over, I walked along the path past the many air-conditioned rooms and, when I got to the dark unlit corner where the path turned into woods, I paused. Was I really heading into the dark on my own? My little lean-to was probably just 200 feet from where the lit path was, but still…

With a little mental push, I stepped over that line, and drew myself up taller and prouder. Please. I was a 40-year-old woman. I could handle walking in the dark, not being able to see exactly. I could handle spiders and other creepy crawlers. I could handle those sounds coming from just outside the long screen-less opening above my cot.

In the morning, I woke up excited to set out on a hike. I didn’t bring anything with me, no water, no phone, no snacks. I was just going to walk a little and come back for my workshop. I didn’t notice any trail markers or anything, I just started walking straight back from my cabin. I walked for a while, whistling to myself, proud of my outdoorsy-ness. It was a beautiful day, and the wind rustled through the trees, and little things scampered through the fallen leaves. I turned around, imagining I’d need to get back and get ready for breakfast, and I started walking. After a bit, though, nothing looked familiar. I thought I’d come straight, and could walk back straight, but now…

Shots rang out in the distance and I saw three beautiful white-tailed bucks bound along just beyond me into an open field below. I didn’t remember that field on my way…

S*#@, F@%^…I began to panic. I’d wanted to get lost, but…I started walking faster, trying to figure, and the extensive acreage of Omega's woods they’d noted to us the night before rang in my ears, as did “don’t walk alone, follow the trails.” I never listened, and now…

“HELP!!!!!!!SOMEBODY HELP!!!!” I screamed out and my own voice reverberated back from the treetops. There was nobody around. Isn’t this what I had wanted? To get lost and find my way, alone?

I started to whimper. There were many, many hours of light, and I was so close to civilization. “You’re being stupid,” I said to myself. “You’re going to find your way, you’re not going to have to sleep in the woods…”

But there it was. A single moment of not knowing where I was or how to get out was enough to remind me how fortunate I was to live how I lived, to have what I had, to not live in fear. “Ok,” I thought, “lesson learned. Now you have to find your way out.”

I took a long deep breath and began to walk in a direction I hadn’t tried. I paid close attention to my surroundings, and finally, I saw a trail marker on a tree, a big white splotch of hope. My racing heart calmed, and I followed the path, back to the road, back to my cabin.

I’ve thought about that moment many times, the time I got what I’d asked for and realized it was a very scary thing. I have returned to Omega over the years, seeking not to get lost but to find my way, learning from great teachers things like how to build Mindfulness in Education and, most recently, how to Develop Your Own Successful Workshop (details to come).

The lesson Omega teaches is to pay attention and to appreciate your surroundings and world around you. It teaches you to think about what you want in your life, and then realize the work it will take to get it, to find your way.

There was an 80-year-old man, Don, who joined my workshop late this past weekend. Bells chimed along with repeated thumps on the stairs outside the Movement building we met in and, finally, the teacher--longtime Omega program developer Michael Craft--stood up to see what was going on. He greeted Don, greying and stooped, supported with a bell-clad cane, and welcomed him gently to sit down. Everyone was patient as the elderly man settled in.

Don joined us intermittently during the weekend, always making the same grand entrance. He would break down as he spoke of what workshop he was there to offer, which ranged from selling hemp to mask-making, it wasn’t quite clear. But at the end, as we went around the circle offering up what we had gotten out of our time there, Don was quite firm.

“My workshop,” he said in the way he had, slow and unsteady, “is life itself, and my audience is…my soul.” He started crying softly, and stopped speaking to compose himself before he went on. “The universe keeps bringing me things, I just gotta get out of the way and let things happen so they can happen.” Here, he stretched up long and proud. “I’ve been wandering all my life,” he said, looking around pointedly at all of us, at Michael, “and I’ve finally found a home.”

We all teared up, and when I walked out the doors of Omega into the ‘real world,’ I thought of Don. It is amazing to find a beautiful spot with beautiful people that you can finally call home.

Michael, who’s been working with the world’s healers since the '70s, sent us off with the message to keep in mind the current crises of our time, when many social institutions have disintegrated and stress seems rampant. But, he said,"make sure in your work to remind people about beauty and joy. There is a need for wholeness, for the inner and outer to come together." Amen. And it is toward that end that we all need to serve and help.