Escape the Madness

Get away from it all by spending the festive season on a retreat.

The winter holiday is looming - and with it comes all the inevitable big decisions: run to the sun or risk it in Blighty? Accept Auntie Maude’s invitation to Christmas lunch or surrender to a gaggle of absent-minded rellies at yours? Buy a real tree or make do with last year’s plastic one? The moral and ethical conundrums are endless.
The sensible option, however, is to opt out – on spiritual grounds of course – by booking a spiritual break with one of the many communities dotted around the UK. These often closed communities throw open their doors to non-community members at various points in the year to allow others to sample an uncomplicated life.

Findhorn Community

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One of the best known (and largest) communities in the UK, Findhorn in Scotland has paved the way for sustainable co-operative living.
As major centre of adult education, it has over 4,500 visitors each year coming for the seven ‘core programmes’, and 60 week-long workshops.
‘Experience Week’, which has been running since 1974, offers the curious visitor an introduction to Findhorn’s spiritual principles – such as ‘attunement’ and ‘group work’ – and spiritual practices such as meditation, sacred dance, and nature outings.
Persons of all faiths are welcome but the community expects all visitors to adhere to the group’s guiding spiritual principles, such as regular meditation practice, toleration and participation in the group sessions. All visitors are expected to help out in the gardens, the kitchens and the home – or with general maintenance – and this is primarily when spiritual guidance takes place.
There are also tailored ‘Experience Weeks’ for young people, families, gay men and women, and for those with an interest in the satellite eco-village (as well as some for non-English speakers).
If you want to get a flavour of what community living is like, this is the place to get it. It pretty much looks like you would imagine a sustainable community to look – very basic accommodation and facilities, but you can feel the love and care that’s been put into them.
Getting there is fun too. Take the train through the highlands – and your spirits will be lifted before you even arrive.
The Findhorn Foundation, The Park, Forres, Grampian, Scotland. (01309 690 311/ www.findhorn.org). Experience Week runs fortnightly throughout the year. Findhorn runs an income-related pricing scheme for the week: £325 low income /£390 medium income/£485 high income.

Gaunts House
A different experience from Findhorn, Gaunts House is an impressive – if a little unkempt – eighteenth-century country mansion with at least 50 rooms set in acres of beautiful countryside. It has a small resident community who live and work there and who are totally non-denominational. Nestled in a quiet corner of Dorset, it’s only a few miles from the market town of Wimborne and 30 minutes from the sea.
The weekend of December 11-12 they host their Christmas Fair, which involves crafts, veggie food, activities for children, yoga and therapies. The house itself can cater for up to 120 residential guests with relative ease, so the place can get quite lively. Saturday nights see an eclectic concert of folk, classical and spiritual music. Accommodation is available at a very reasonable £20 per night – and everyone is welcome.
Gaunts are also hosting a New Year retreat with Dr William Bloom, the internationally acclaimed holistic teacher and author of ‘The Endorphin Effect’. Once you have contemplated, assessed and then celebrated your life, enjoy the many healing activities on offer, including aromatherapy, Indian head massage, reiki, reflexology and metamorphic technique.
Gaunts House, The Richard Glyn Foundation, Wimborne, Dorset (01202-841522/ www.gauntshouse.com) Open all year round. The Christmas Fair runs from December 11-12. Adm £2.50 Accommodation £20. New Year Retreat with Dr William Bloom runs from December 29-January 1 costing £280. Outside special retreat times, rooms start at £95 for a minimum stay of two nights.

Krishnamurti Centre
If you are looking for serenity – and are interested in the spiritual teachings of Krishnamurti – this idyllic retreat centre, set in acres of beautiful Hampshire, could be the ideal place for you.
Krishnamurti’s teachings appeal to a wide audience and are enjoyed by people who might otherwise consider themselves aspiritual. He advocated: ‘Truth is a pathless land. Man cannot come to it through any organisation, through any creed, through any dogma, priest or ritual, nor through any philosophic knowledge or psychological technique.’
Theme Weekends and Study Retreats lasting from three to five days take place throughout the year – but over the Christmas period guests are left to pursue their own study with the vast array of videos, audios and books.
Single room en-suite accommodation exists for up to 20 guests. Meals are vegetarian – and prepared to a high standard.
Krishnamurti Centre, Brockwood Park, Bramdean, Hampshire (01962 771 748/ www.brockwood.org.uk/centre). Open throughout Christmas and New Year until January 4 for private retreat and studies. The rate for the Theme Weekend is £145 all inclusive.
Two nights full room and board £55 per night. For three nights plus full room and board, £48 per person.

Madhyamaka Buddhist Centre
You don’t have to be Buddhist to take part in a New Year retreat at this thriving meditation centre in the heart of the Yorkshire wolds.
The centre is one of the largest and most well-established Buddhist centres in the UK with a residential community of over 40 monks, nuns and lay people running a variety of excellent meditation courses and retreats.
Their popular New Year retreat, Atisha’s Advice, is centred on the teachings of eleventh-century sage Atisha, and includes meditation, relaxation and teaching on how to live in a way that makes our lives more meaningful. Take a break from all that stiff austerity with a New Year’s Eve banquet and vigil for peace.
For a more intense experience, the six-day guided Lanrim retreat, from January 3, explores the 21 stages of the path to enlightenment (Lanrim) via a combination of prayer, quiet study, teaching and guided meditations.
Working Visits are also an option for those who wish to explore Buddhism further. They last for one week and visitors are expected to work from 9-5 Monday to Friday in return for free room, board and spiritual guidance.
But the centre stresses that it is not a place to escape to. Expect to run headlong into life, not away from it.
Madhyamaka Buddhist Centre, Kilnwick Percy Hall, Pocklington, Yorkshire (01759 304832/ www.madhyamaka.org). Open over Christmas and New Year.
Atisha’s Advice Retreat runs from December 28- January 1. Price ranges from £29 per night for the retreat to £47 per night, depending on the level of accommodation.
Guided Lanrim Retreat runs January 3-9, costs £10 a night for very standard accommodation. Bring your own sleeping bag.