The One Resource That Never Runs Out

Life has a way of filling up, and then filling up a little more.

Here in Colorado, we didn’t really have a winter this year. The organic pull to slow down, go inward, and settle that snow and cold naturally provide was simply absent. We live in a hot, speedy, yin-deficient culture and climate, and it seems to intensify with each passing season. I feel that in my patients’ bodies and nervous systems every day. Grounding, resourcing, and finding center in this chaotic world feels more important than ever.

This month I taught a three-night retreat at Vajra Vidya Retreat Center in Crestone, CO. It was a beautiful, potent experience, and I am so grateful for the luminous shrine room where we gathered each day, for the kind and generous people who run the center, the sincerity of the participants who gathered, and for the sacred land that holds it all.

Returning now to my very full, sometimes overwhelming schedule, I find myself noticing and savoring the effects of meditation practice in a new way.

Even just a few days away to turn inward and give my attention and heart to the clarity and light found inside makes the difference palpable, in my nervous system, my mind, and above all, my capacity to be present.

I know that for many of you, carving out that kind of time feels impossible. The schedule is too full, the obligations too many, the guilt of stepping away too loud. And yet that is precisely when this practice matters most. Your connection to your inner resource is a profound resource amidst it all

When my mind stirs and wants to spin in the story of not enough, too much or not okay, after retreat I come back more quickly. When things feel overwhelming, the inner knowing to return to resource and presence arrives almost instantly. It is as though retreat and practice have strengthened the anchor that brings me back to my own wellness, fortified the ballast that rights my ship in the middle of life’s great seas.

This training in returning, again and again, to an upright and clear presence and a soft, open heart, it is the greatest refuge and resource I have ever found. And the more we practice, the more quickly we are able to return. Until one day, it becomes the only option that even occurs to us. That presence is recognized as who we truly are, no matter what.

Spiritual practice and meditation does not remove our problems or our very human experience of challenge and emotion. But it does allow us to resource into a presence and capacity that offers profound refuge in the midst of it all.

If something in these words is speaking to you, I warmly invite you to practice alongside me. Later in this newsletter you’ll find details about my December 3–7, 2026 retreat, an opportunity to step away and tend to yourself in a deeper way, as well as my monthly meditation group, open to all. I would love to see you there.

When I led that retreat, my teacher Sharon attended as a participant; not as an authority overseeing my teaching, but as a fellow student of the Dharma, open, receptive, and fully present. She joined in the retreat as a student with steady, loving attention, offering no corrections or redirections, just genuine curiosity and care. In that, she modeled the very openness she has always encouraged in me, and reminded me of something essential: that we never truly arrive. The path is always unfolding. We are always growing. Even my deeply awakened teacher sits humbly within that truth.

It was deeply healing. For years I taught in other contexts where the aim was control rather than liberation, where high teachers built students up only to cut them down, and wanted us to be reflections of them rather than authentic expressions of the Dharma in our own unique way. Sharon is the opposite of all that. Her directives to me have always been to speak from my own experience, to tell the truth, to never stop and never arrive, and to allow awareness and the Divine to move through everything I do as a teacher. She has said that her role is to be the shoulders I stand on, to help me go farther than she has gone. What a miraculous and truly selfless thing for a teacher to offer.

I want to be that kind of presence; one that sees the light and truth within each being and holds a steady torch for it, no matter what. I know my students are here to become ever more authentic expressions of themselves, and I want to support the Dharma moving through them in their own unique way.

I carry deep gratitude to Sharon, and a precious few other authentic teachers I have known in my life, and to the path they help me walk. That gratitude comes with me into every room I teach in, including this one.

Share Seeds of Light Elizabeth Astor

Joy,
by David Wise
If you could justify questioning worthiness,
would you not also, when you feel sorrow, have to say to yourself,
I feel guilty about having so much sorrow when others feel so much joy.
If this were true, you would then also have to ask yourself,
should I not eat less when others have already eaten and are satiated?
Also to ask, is it okay for me to be this sick when others have such health?
What is good for you, and to you is not a theft.
It does not reach across the wound of another and take something from them.
The world is not a room with a single window.
Your light does not darken a neighbor's doorway.
And yet you ask yourself as if before a court: am I allowed this?
Your joy is not a betrayal.
When we feel joyful amidst the sorrow of others
recognize how, in the closeness of this world,
there will always be both simultaneously
The self questioning around worthiness of having joy
is is the result of the aggression
of that which causes the sorrow.
Notice the logic you have been handed.
If worthiness were the governing question
then grief too would require permission.
Follow this logic to where it leads.
To ask am I allowed to feel joy is to already accept the premise of the jail warden
whose name is scarcity.
There is no inherent injustice,
from proximity to it.
You would have to say,
standing at the edge of your own sorrow,
I stand also at the edge and precipice of my joy.
Sorrow and joy are not opposites waiting their turn.
They are simultaneous.
This all,
is the exact, and actual size of the world.

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Dates: Thursday, December 3rd afternoon through lunch on Monday December 7th

Location: Vajra Vidya Retreat Center, Crestone, CO. 81131

This retreat explores the living relationship between the human and the Divine: how to receive that which wants to move through you, how to let it illuminate your inner life, and how to bring its gifts into everything you touch.

Together we will explore what it means to let the Divine move through your full humanity, your body’s wisdom, your heart’s longing, and your mind’s clarity. Drawing on the refuge of awareness, the resource of deep presence, and the illumination of the open heart, we will discover together what it means to be a human life fully lived, grounded in the body, open in the heart, and moved by something greater than ourselves.

We will be held in a field of silence to support deep inward listening, with times for teachings, questions, and shared inquiry woven throughout the retreat.

Come rest in what cannot be shaken. Come let it move through you.

Pricing:

• Zoom Online – $225.00

• Commuter – $695.00

• Single Bed · Shared Bath – $895.00

• Single Bed · Private Bath (ADA available) – $935.00

Sliding Scale is available for those experiencing financial hardship. A limited number of reduced rate tickets are available to help make participation possible for those who might not otherwise be able to join.

Register Now

This is an ongoing group that meets monthly online with Elizabeth to practice how to ride the waves of the challenging moments in our lives and work with our different mind states. We practice ways to cultivate resilience, self connection, and deep wellbeing. Our time together includes teachings, guided meditation, as well as space for questions, discussion and sharing.

We would love to have you join us!

We gather on zoom 2-3pm MT, the 3rd Tuesday of each month.

$20 / Month

Register Now

Seeds of Light is the blog of Elizabeth Astor, LAc, MSOM, CHom.