Five times a year I hold my silent retreats at the Zentrum Ranft, and every season brings its own magic.
Usually, the Ranft is a place of silence. This time, the silence was a little more alive.
What no one had planned or expected: a group of Ukrainian children and teenagers was staying at the Zentrum Ranft at the same time. For them, it was a place to find a little peace after living through war, to enjoy the house, to simply be children, to be young and a little weightless. The Zentrum Ranft gave them this place.
So two very different energies met: the lively joy of the children and our silence. And yet both were about the same thing: joy, silence, peace. Everything is allowed to be. It is a question of balance, and we find this balance within ourselves.
Of course, resistance can arise when you come for silence and the silence turns out different than expected. That is deeply human. And still: everything teaches us.
The Ranft is a simple place, a house that carries so much and holds so much energy. Many things are changing there, I have seen it. Yet a living, powerful energy remains, one that reaches further than the people who carry and shape the house.
What if it comes differently?
This weekend taught me something again. How do you respond when what you expect does not come, or comes differently?
The moment it happens, and how strong the resistance is, shows us everything about how we are and how we deal with it. What we make of it is not bigger, better or less. It is the decision. When we go with the change, it becomes a positive, powerful process of learning and healing. We go with what is here right now. Because this is life, this is reality, this is the moment.
For me, this moment is sacred, even when the silence is in motion. In the moment, you are still you. And the moment itself is a teacher.
War outside, war inside
We humans, in so many places in this world, are all going through something: war on the outside, war on the inside. The responsibility lies with us, and luckily, it may lie only with us. Peace is within us. When we make peace with ourselves, peace happens through us. There is not much we need to search for outside. It is what is inside that is allowed to grow.
The wideness of the heart
On Sunday, no one wanted to leave the breakfast table. Everyone was still there, sometimes in silence, sometimes sharing something beautiful, and there was laughter. There was a wideness, the wideness of the heart that each of us carries within. It could be felt again. We could reconnect with it.
We all carry tension within us. Through it comes relaxation, a phase of rest in life. That is what it means to be in life: to find the balance again and again. With every retreat like this, this balance grows stronger.
A ritual that grows
Almost 90 percent of the participants have been coming for years, almost every year. It has become a wonderfully powerful ritual that they choose again and again, consciously or unconsciously. And it grows, it strengthens. Patience, pause and peace are cultivated and nourished. Everything you nourish becomes part of you, sooner or later.
No retreat is like another, because you are never the same person you were yesterday. And so the silence meets you where you are and carries you further, to where you wish to go.
Come into the silence
The next silent retreat in the Ranft takes place from 3 to 6 December 2026, in the middle of Advent, when the world outside grows louder. Whether you are coming for the first time or have been with us for years: you are warmly welcome. All information and registration at www.rosa-catalano.ch.
Much Love
Rose 🌹
