Glimpse: Maira’s Silent Retreat

Mindful’s illustrator for the back page, Maira Kalman, anticipates her first meditation retreat.

When we first approached Maira Kalman—whose work has been featured in The New Yorker and other publications—about illustrating Mindful‘s back page, she had not tried meditation before. Now in the October issue, she explores the idea of heading for her next level of practice: a three-day silent retreat.

Kalman says her meditation practice at present does not involve sitting, but she takes moments throughout the day to check in and focus on her breathing. So preparing to go on a retreat has stirred up a mixture of joy and trepidation. Although, she says the silence part doesn’t bother her as much.

“The nice part of it is that I don’t know what will happen during the retreat, which is exactly the point,” she says. “I’m pre-worrying, but I can also decide to turn that off and just say, ‘It’ll be what it’ll be.’ I might like it, I might hate it, I might think it’s idiotic, I might think it’s fabulous, and probably all of the above.”

For more than just this Glimpse: