This week I am off-island for a short break. A vacation, with my husband John, in Florida to visit some friends and just spend some time relaxing. We had decided to get away from Bermuda for a short holiday when some of our adult children had left after Christmas to return to their homes in Canada.

We felt that “getting away” would perhaps help fill some of the void that their absence had left. I find it fascinating that there must be, at this very moment, people “getting away” and relaxing in Bermuda, the place we have just left! I also question why I have to get away to relax and have “a change” somewhere else!

Our vacations always start in our heads, and even when we do get away, we sometimes still cannot find peace and joy in those moments. Sometimes, when I need to relax, “get away from it all” and still my mind, one of the techniques I use is to recreate a peaceful place, in my mind, from my childhood. I go to a special place in my mind that feeds and fills me spiritually. I grew up as a small child on a farm in Sussex, England. Our next-door neighbours all lived a mile or more away from us. Our farm was situated in a very lovely part of Southern England, just under the South Downs, those rolling chalk hills that support sheep grazing and that have been written about since Roman times.

My parents had to drive me to neighbouring farms, so I could spend time interacting and playing with other children. So I learned very early to amuse myself on my own and to enjoy the solitude that my parent's lifestyle required of me. One of the things I loved most was going into the farm's oak treed woods.

They were like an enchanted forest to my childish imagination. In the springtime I would go there and pick primroses and bluebells and in the autumn play in the piles of crisp brown leaves. As there was never any fear at that time of a child being abducted away or lost, I was allowed to wander everywhere over the farm all by myself. An activity that I enjoyed was tree climbing. I was a bit of a “tomboy”. I would love to climb, as high as I could, up into the trees and look at the world from a different viewpoint or perspective. One day I fell out of a rather large tree into the polished spiky dark green leaved and red-berried holly bush.

I was covered with scratches from its prickly leaves, but otherwise unhurt. I ended up in a small area on the ground inside the holly bush, maybe four feet by four feet, where no leaves or branches grew. As I sat there for a few minutes, dazed by my fall, I realised that my misfortune had led me to a secret hiding place! This was to become my special sacred secret place to hide from the outer world. Over the next few months I would return regularly with special items I found around the farm, an old tin can in which I daily placed wild flowers, some unusual colourful stones, beautiful bird's feathers, odd shaped sticks, even special cut-out pictures and a small stool were all brought to enhance the place where I would just sit and enjoy peace and quiet by myself.

It became a place where I could still my mind and listen to my childish inner truth. I could close my eyes and listen to nature. Really hear it. I could open my eyes and just stare at nature. And really see it. I could smell the rich scent of the bare earth. I felt very safe and secure. After my daily visits I felt more deeply connected to myself. I didn't know it at the time, but I had found a meditation space or a personal retreat space. I told no one about my secret hiding place, it was too precious a secret to share with the rest of the world.

We all need a special place to retreat to that is just ours and that nobody else shares it with us. It may only be a small shelf or a tiny table where everything that is on it is significant and special to us. Now I have one in the corner of our second bedroom. It is a small table covered with a precious scarf a friend gave to me.

It has a small statue of a Buddha and a Palm Sunday Cross, two photos - one of myself as a child of about seven and another photo of my family of origin taken when I was about three. There are also always a changing group of items such as stones, shells, oak acorns, seeds, leaves, a freshly picked flower, a few written words that touch me, a pretty candle and some incense. It could be called an Altar or just my special space. It touches a part of my personal history, my spiritual ancestors, people in my life and the present moment. For me it is a place of gratitude for my family, who are still so much a part of me, and a place of gratitude to our beautiful Earth and all who inhabit it, without which or whom I could not survive. I have a little stool beside my special place to rest upon and meditate. It is a small wooden meditation bench with the words “Breathe my dear” that I embroidered upon its pretty purple seat cover.

This special place is somewhere I can go daily to relax and “Be still and know I am God”. It is my special place to sit and stop my monkey-mind from its eternal chatter and find peace, stillness, joy and serenity in the moment. We all need a sacred place like this. It is one of the ways that I use to show love and compassion for myself. It helps feed my spiritual needs. So if you can find a small table, or a dedicated shelf on a bookcase in your home, where you can put a few special items that are significant to you and a chair beside it to relax in, please do it.

Or find your own special rock on the South Shore that you can go to, relax, be still and enjoy the moment. I encourage you to find a special spiritual sanctuary for yourselves. It is one way of “getting away” from our day-to-day routine and responsibilities. Maybe we shall all find that we don't have to “get away” from beautiful Bermuda as often, just to find ourselves!

The Mindfulness Practice Community of Bermuda meets every Sunday at 5.14 p.m. The Manchester Union Building, 71 Victoria Street (Union Street entrance). Call 236-4988 or e-mail iamhome@ibl.bm.