I often plan retreats years in advance. Yet, despite all the many months and sometimes years of planning, one thing I’ve learned over the years is to expect the unexpected, that some things are impossible to plan.
In 2018 I led a retreat in the breathtaking Amalfi Coast in Italy. We stayed in a 16th-century convent turned into a retreat center, a stone’s throw from the Mediterranean, and loved eating outside under the trellises thick with summer flowers, practicing yoga in the open air yoga shala, and eating the sumptuous, home-cooked meals by our Italian chefs. It was a complete paradise.
One day, all I had planned for the day was leading a morning meditation and a mid-morning and afternoon yoga practice and other than that we’d simply be hanging around the convent relaxing, reading or journaling, and maybe walking down to the sea.
Our host approached me after our early morning meditation and asked off-handedly if I might be interested in taking the group to hike near some ocean cliffs during the late morning and early afternoon as well as perhaps going to Naples in the evening to hear some outdoor music and eat some pizza, an informal event organized by his “cousin.” I say “cousin” because it seems that our Italian host is “cousins” with half of Naples. Anyway, it would cost everyone €15.
At first, I was a little hesitant to add anything to our schedule that day for two reasons. First, I’ve learned that too many excursions at a retreat can blur the container and can sometimes distract from the overall spirit of the retreat. Plenty of scheduled down time is necessary for the message and experience of the retreat to really sink in. Secondly, we’d already paid for a very nice meal to be prepared by our chefs that night and I didn’t want everyone to pay an additional €15 for an experience they hadn’t planned on. Also, I freely admit that what I had envisioned when our host had described “outdoor music and pizza” was our group sitting on the curb in a dirty piazza in Naples listening to some loud Italian garage band and eating whatever local cheap pizza shop happened to be nearby— which admittedly, being in Naples, would probably still be amazing.
Maybe I was feeling capricious or maybe the allure of real Napolese pizza caught my fancy, but on a whim I decided what the hell, we’d do both the hike and the dinner.
That morning we did our usual morning movement and meditation practice, greeting the sun as it crept over the mount Vesuvius casting the convent in its shadow. Later, in our morning asana practice, we were invigorated and opened as we stretched, moved, and breathed.
After yoga, we all loaded into a van and drove a short distance to do our hike. The natural landscape was breathtaking as we skirted the rocky cliffs that edged the cerulean blue waters of the bay of Naples. Wild flowers grew from rock crevices and tantalized our eyes with their panoply of colors. The kiss and scent of the fresh sea breeze caressed our faces.
We hiked a steep downhill mile and arrived at a natural rock platform and marveled as the entire ocean seemed to heave and swell as if watching the ocean’s watery and profound breaths. A feeling of pure giddiness and abandon took over the entire group and soon we were screaming and laughing as we bobbed in the lapis waters trying our best to avoid the errant jellyfish.
Waterlogged and tired and nursing only a few minor jellyfish stings, we emerged from the ocean to make the mile-long slog back up the hill to the van. I was carrying Elio (not quite 3 at the time) in my arms and he fell asleep as I sweated up the hill. Some kind and enterprising locals saw us trekking up the hill and as we summited the plateau, we saw that they had erected a crude table with small glasses for us to enjoy some limoncello and beers. After the invigorating swim and exhausting hike, the sweet lemon liqueur tasted like pure soma, the elixir of the gods.
Eventually, we made it back to the convent, showered, and enjoyed a hearty lunch before resting deeply with a lengthy Yoga Nidra practice, the yoga retreat version of a siesta. After Yoga Nidra, several people reported feeling more light and open than they could remember and a few even translated that feeling into being among the most spiritual feelings of their lives.
Feeling restored and rested after Yoga Nidra, we got dressed up for our night out of pizza and music. We mounted the vans and as they began to move, I expected our drivers to steer us toward the busy and crowded streets of Naples but instead they began winding their way through the hilly terraced vineyards in the mountains encircling Naples.
Eventually we stepped out of the van, not onto some dirty piazza, but onto the manicured grounds of an old, stately, and beautifully restored villa and vineyard, basking in the setting sun as it dipped into the bay of Naples. We met a handful of other guests to this soirée and strolled on the lawn toward the back of the villa where we saw a few small rows of chairs facing the pool. After grabbing a glass of wine, we took a seat and waited for the music to begin, which it did shortly.
Yes, just like I had envisioned, there were guitars at this concert but they were not “3-chords-and-the–truth” kind of guitars turned up to 11. Instead of ripped jeans and safety pins, onto the stage of this “informal” concert came two men wearing tuxedos and carrying classical guitars and a mandolin. They sat down and our intimate crowd clapped a joyous welcome then hushed, clearly in surprise and awe at the treat that was presenting itself for us. After a few seconds of silence, they began to play and continued for almost two hours, filling the early evening air with the mellifluous and warm song of classical guitar and mandolin.
After a dozen or so numbers, the guitar and mandolin players were joined by another man in a tuxedo who sang select opera numbers in an impressive operatic baritone. What struck me was the look of pure joy and pleasure on the singer’s face, as if he would rather be doing nothing else in the world at that moment than singing his heart out into the night for our small assembly. His joy was infectious and as I looked around our group, I was pleased to see everyone grinning with unabashed delight.
After the musicians took their bows and left the stage the next act was about to happen. Onto the scene appeared a small, happy, and old woman with a face deeply creased by decades of smiling. She almost looked old enough to be an original inhabitant of the villa. But instead of music, her gift was offering us a symphony for our senses.
Soon she began a pizza processional. Every few minutes she would march from the kitchen and its original wood-fired oven outside to our hungry table, presenting us with freshly-baked pizzas, still steaming on her long wooden pizza paddle. She presented each pizza with bashful smiles as we boisterously clapped and cheered this opulent pizza performance. The freshly-baked pizzas were absolutely decadent, an opera of perfectly chewy crust, deep and rich sauce made from fresh tomatoes and oregano, a generous covering of fresh, local, mozzarella, and of course garnished with a few fresh basil leaves in the Napolise way. Buonissimo!
As we segued from Puccini and listening to pizza and laughing, little Elio took my hand and stole me away. Together we ran into the burgeoning darkness, around the grounds of the villa, through the olive trees and grape vines, chasing the blinking fireflies that lit up the night like fairies.
That night, we all drank, ate, and laughed in the shadow of this impossibly perfect and completely unplanned day we shared together. And as I soaked it all it in, I raised my eyes above the twinkling fireflies to the winking of the stars above, and mused at the power of a simple “yes” and how sometimes you have to expect the unexpected.
When I teach others about leading retreats, we often explore ways to add value to the experience. Sometimes that’s learning when to have a rigid structure and when to go with the flow. One of the things I had the foresight to plan for my Amalfi retreat, something that I felt added immense value to the attendees of this retreat, was to invite my friend and professional photographer Reed Rowe along so that he could snap incredible photos while we were practicing being present to the experiences we were having without feeling we had to capture them by pulling out our phones the entire time. See some of the incredible pics Reed took for us that day.
Also, if you feel like expecting the unexpected, please do something impetuous and grab your bestie to join me for my Bordeaux yoga retreat, June 5–11, where we will practice savoring life! I have only two spots left and I’d love to have you join me.
I also have a few spots left for my Tuscany retreats, September 3–10 and October 8–15.
Thank you!
