Pomeranian at the gong bath.

It sounds like a song title by The Wombats but last weekend, we were lucky enough to visit The Wild Retreat. It’s a lovely little woodland hideaway on the edge of the River Stort. What made it all the better was that we took our son with us.
Our son is our 18 month old Pomeranian by the way. And yes, I will refer to his age in months like he is a human baby.

During our time there, we were lucky enough to go wild swimming, enjoy the sunshine and take part in a gong bath. I’d never had a gong bath before, or been to a gong bath before. It’s hard to work out the language around it. There was once an ill-fated attempt by some friends to gong bath while high but that never came to pass and I won’t reveal their names.
A gong bath, and the enthusiasts in the chat will have to forgive my ignorant terminology here, is a form of meditation where you lay down and close your eyes and someone plays a series of gongs and singing bowls which then resonate through the body? I’m still not sure.
It’s worth saying I can be a little cynical about certain practices and was worried that I’d be stretched out like an insomniac while everyone around me reached nirvana.

What we didn’t know was how Herb (the Pomeranian) would take to being forced to sit still for a prolonged period of time. He’s a very active little guy. We recently had to fill in some paperwork that included his Last Wishes (that’s another story for another time) and my partner suggested it would be for us to throw his toy doughnut one last time.

As the gong bath was run, I’m attempting to compare it to a bubble bath here, Herb settled between my legs and finally chilled the fuck out. You’re talking about a kid who wakes me up at 5am by repeatedly tapping me on the head so I can throw his toys across our bedroom. Herb stopped. He finally was at rest. He got onboard, understood what the occasion called for and got real zen about things.
I’d love to know what he thought about while we were nesting there. If he’s as much like me as I hope then it was the idea of selling all our worldly possessions and moving under that tarp in a field so we could cleanse with a daily gong bath, paying our way in the world with some gentle labour.

In truth, we both discovered something about ourselves in that gong bath. When you stop chasing after the doughnut and listen to your body, that can be enough, even if it is just for a short while.