Spiritual Retreat & Prayer

My discipline, such as it is, is to spend an uninterrupted day from dawn to dusk in God's creation, to be, in that way and for that time, just one of God's creatures. The aim is to find a rough outdoor shelter (The Hermitage has several such shelters on its grounds) with access to trails for walking. The shelter is my base for reading and journaling, but much of the day is spent "on the trail." We arrive the night before (Thursday), take stock of the setting, get a good night's rest, and then I intend to be at my "base" before sunrise and remain there or on the trails without interruption until after sunset. (Loretta does her own thing during this time.) Of course, I'm "cheating" since these first retreats take place during the shortest days of the year, but my retreats will get longer as we move toward and into Spring. I'm not sure about doing this retreat in full summer with 15 plus hours of daylight to fill!
This was a marvelous "first day" retreat, cloudy and cool, with occasional drizzle or light sleet, temps in the 30's. I could even spurn the heater in my base shelter here at the Hermitage! A wonderful day for walking in the woods and hearing what the silence and solitude might have to say to me.
The structure of the day is a time of quiet listening, a reading of several suggested Scriptures, a reading of several printed reflections on the theme, and then a time of personal reflection, prayer, and journaling. This pattern is repeated twice in the day, morning and afternoon, using the same resources. The theme for this day's reflections was an Advent/Christmas theme--God's greatest gift.
I've known, and it was confirmed for me again last evening in talking with David Wenger, the spiritual director here at The Hermitage, and in my experience today, that my best praying is done by the movement of my body. When I sit down to pray verbally alone, I struggle to concentrate and it feels very contrived and artificial. (Not that I don't do some praying like this, or shouldn't.) But it is when I am walking that I hear God speaking to me in the things I see and hear and observe. Perhaps another time I can share some thing's I've hear God "say" to me, but I'm not prepared to do that now.
A part of my walking took me also through a prayer labyrinth laid out in a grassy valley here at The Hermitage. It struck me again how moving it is to enter the labyrinth and to follow its circular paths to the center. At the center, one can pray to each of the four cardinal directions--East, the direction of morning and spring; South, the direction of noon and summer; West, the direction of evening and autumn; and North, the direction of night and winter.
Today I resolved to mark out a prayer labyrinth in the church yard lawn this summer before our centennial. While it may not be significant or meaningful for everyone, there are surely some others like myself at church who pray best "on our feet, on the way!!"
--Written at The Hermitage "Lean to", overlooking a pond, 3:30 PM, 01-11-08.
--PS: Please add any reflections on what you have learned about prayer and spiritual disciplines!