This week’s blog entry is from our newest retreat leader, Sarah Scarborough, who teaches our Ritual+Renewal retreat. Sarah has spent the past 25 years traveling the world in search of quality and sustainable teas, studying the way traditional cultures use tea to connect and to enjoy life, which she chronicles through Tea Huntress. She just led her first retreat in Marrakesh, Morocco, and we asked her about her experience.
“Be melting snow. Wash yourself of yourself” - Rumi
When I was 19, I fell in love with an Indie Kate Winslet film called Hideous Kinky. It was about a young English woman who moves with her two small daughters to Morocco and gets lost in the soul of the place. I watched it over and over, taking in the colorful souks, the music, the sufi poetry, the vast desert and mountain landscapes, pink city walls shaded with orange blossoms and roses and silver pots of sweet mint tea.
I saw Morocco as a place to lose yourself and dreamed of going one day.
There is an essence there that you have to experience to understand. Yves St Laurent said that Morocco taught him color. Jimi Hendrix found inspiration for Castles in the Sand there. Bob Dylan, Kerouac and countless others have found profound inspiration in Morocco.
Since leading Ritual + Renewal retreats in Marrakech with EAT.PRAY.MOVE, I have seen more than one guest lose themselves just enough to then find a more authentic version upon returning home. It is as if dropping into rhythm with all of the whirling sensory excitement allows you to drop out of your analytical mind and into a place of inner awareness and truth. It is what makes Morocco the perfect place to explore ritual and to allow the quiet, meditative daily yoga practices and tea ceremonies to guide you towards your highest self, the one that is confident and calm and connected.