Retreat from cabin fever

If you're not a skier, snowboarder or backcountry snowshoer, it's easy to get bored and frustrated - cabin fever - with all that snow up there. Your home can become confining, television a bore. And sometimes we all feel a little too busy to think about life. What's the antidote?

How about a do-it-yourself retreat? Not a religious outing, although spirituality can play a large role, but a simple change of lifestyle for one day, two, a week, a month, whatever suits you.

Formal retreats are popular these days among those who practice yoga, Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Hindu, Islam or other forms of spirituality. Those retreats usually involve travel and cost money. On the Internet, there are hundreds of destination retreat centers all over he world.

But the do-it-yourself home retreat can be a journey in itself - a mental and physical experience. Here are some samples of locals who make such retreats. As their stories are personal, we've changed the names.

TWO ON RETREAT

Jane and Roger annually take a do-it-yourself retreat at home. They set aside a couple of days every few months for a personal retreat.

"We're not religious," said Jane from her wooded homesite in South Lake Tahoe. "But we feel there is a kind of spirit out there, and we try to link up with it."

How?

"A retreat," said Roger. "Two days of restrained life. No frivolity. No TV.

"We go on retreat by joining nature in ways. For instance, on the day we start our two-day retreat, we do a little yoga - lotus position, Buddha tree, deep breathing, lifts and body movements. Much of this we do often, but during the retreat, we don't let the everyday intrude.

"We discuss life, not just spiritual aspects of life, but everyday things - why does a tree grow tall, why do we do some things, is there a relationship with nature that we are missing?"

"We simplify everything. Normally we enjoy a highly varied diet - meat, chicken, fish, wine, salads," said Jane. "During our retreats, we limit our meals to very basic things - grain, fresh organic fruit, juice ... nothing processed or manufactured. It's a limited kind of fast."

"Yes, we read. Not magazines, but important books about nature, about science, about religion, fiction. Yes, the Bible, the Koran, poetry. And we talk about those books, try to get to the meaning of the arguments.

"We read important fiction or plays. Shakespeare is very good. You can read his plays, and the more you do, the more you understand that he wasn't just writing about kings and princes, but about the nature of man and his morality."

"And that leads to discussion such things as morality. Where does it come from? The Sermon the Mount? The Ten Commandments? Mohammed's strictures? Or is it something that came out of the growth of society?

"The single man or woman has no morality. How can he or she? Does morality come only when the family evolves and requires a code of behavior to protect itself? Those are the kinds of questions that come up during a retreat."

But a home retreat doesn't have to be some kind of classroom.

"We both enjoy the outdoors, but we rarely do winter outdoor sports together," said Jane. "But during a retreat, we'll do something together, like cross country skiing or snowshoeing. We go where we haven't been before and we let nature enfold us. We don't talk a lot then, and we don't dash around. We go quietly, looking for the animals that share out world."

THINKING ABOUT THINKING

Meditation can play a large role in a home retreat. It doesn't have to be done in a special place or by special ways. Meditation can mean many things. It's not sitting in the cobbler position with the thumb and index finger joined.

Meditation is just thinking about simple things. It can be about colors, it can be a void (the most demanding), it can be about past life, about something you said that had meanings you hadn't considered.

Yes, Zen and other esoteric disciples have formal modes of meditating, but at home you can be on your own. The important thing is to do something that you normally don't do - get out of the daily rut, let the mind and the body roam into new spaces, simplify, strip down to those parts of you that you have forgotten existed. Some simply count until they lose themselves. Some stare at a candle. Some do nothing but sit or stand. Looking at nature and mountains and considering your relationship to them is meditating.

A SINGLE WOMAN

Davey is a masseuse whose family lives in Carson City. She's 50, and has worked as a cultural anthropologist in Arizona. She recently started a 40-day retreat.

"I've done it before, perhaps not 40 days," she says during a short break from her retreat.

"I eat only between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. No processed food, mostly grains, vegetables, no alcohol, tea mostly. I'll lose weight, but that's not the point. I clean out my body as I clean out my mind.

"I continue my daily work schedule of massage. I have no choice with that, and my clients depend on me. But in a way, it is a valuable part of my retreat. I find value in sharing time with my clients. Not many of us can afford to take 40 days off work. But you can simply do it better, more thoughtfully. I work harder to make my clients happier and better adjusted.

"I cut myself off from all media: no newspapers, no radio, no television. I read spiritual books or articles. I'm not religious, but spiritual. No social life. I tell all my friends before I start not to expect to hear from me. I try to picture myself as in the middle of a vast desert. I am alone with the universe."

A WIFE AND MOTHER

"I perhaps don't think of my vacation time as a retreat, but that's what it is. My husband and I have Harleys, and we make road trips.

"I don't know if this qualifies as a retreat, but when I'm riding on the road to La Vegas, I'm alone with myself and my bike. It's the best time for me. I live entirely in the moment - no kids, no dinner to fix. I'm aware of little things that most of the time I'm not. Like how the air feels, how the road peels along beneath me. "A retreat? Maybe. I know I feel whole afterwards as if I had emptied out my body and mind of unnecessary things.

A MINISTER

"I think such retreats can have a very positive effect on people. We get too wound up in everydaylife. The Bible speaks of being still and waiting for the Lord to speak. It's too bad we ofen don't have the gumption and fortitude to take time to stop and just think. I'm a backpacker and I recently took my gear and Bible and went up in the mountains for a couple of days and it became a very positive, beneficial experience."

A DOCTOR

"I think a retreat can be a positive experience, but I warn people taking medications not to go too far and stop taking them. I caution my patients who ask me about retreats that while the experience can be very beneficial, losing weight and adopting a more healthy diet, after the retreat the person often slips right back to the kind of lifestyle that he or she was trying to avoid. But often if the retreat includes a healthier way of life iit can carry on for longtime benefits."

Contact reporter Sam Bauman at 881-1236 or sbauman@nevadaappeal.com.