A Sacred Journey

Tags

Retreat, Writing Inspiration

Our Summer Writing Retreat happened under a tin roof pavilion, home to a labyrinth.   As the rain hammered above we were surrounded in the wet greenness.  These were the words evoked and offered by the gathered participants:  viriditas, journey, sacred, sorrow, clarity, rolling wonder, connection, stillness, magical playmates, community, freedom, peace, and gratitude.  As I often do, I used the words in a piece of free verse writing.

On a sacred journey,

you may bring your sorrow

Pack it in your suitcase

When you arrive, unpack your bag

in a new place

of cloud and rain and rolling wonder

Watch from your wet window

as viriditas opens

in vibrant greenness

of leaf and bud

and grassy spiral path

Sense your connection in the stillness

Hear the voice of magical playmates

calling you to community

Walk out in freedom

You will find peace

and gratitude

as sorrow breaks open to clarity

you find your way through.

Magical Playmates

After walking the labyrinth and writing, artist, Lynne Harter, created an artistic response of thanks to the place.   Inspired by Andy Goldsworthy, she used natural materials found on the site.  Other participants also found there own artistic expression in the place.  Thanks to St. Francis in the Field Church  for creating and maintaining this inspiring place.  In October, we will gather there again for walking, writing and artistic response.

Artist, Lynne Harter

 

Poetic Living

Tags

Retreat, Writing Inspiration

Lately, I have been intrigued by an idea of living poetically.  I want to live in the spaciousness created by poetry.  Much like a good soundtrack enhances a film, poetry enhances living.  Poetry like music helps me to enter more fully into life and to feel its magic.  In this expansion, the senses are heightened and I find freedom to see myself anew without the old labels and stale thinking that could easily propagate in my mind and my words.  Poet, David Whyte actually says we reach a point where we grow tired of ourselves, tired of hearing ourselves say what we always say. 

Maybe here, we begin to hear ourselves using old words in new ways – we hear sensibility as “sense ability”, responsibility as response ability and freedom as a place like a kingdom.    The poetry of David Whyte and Mary Oliver has inspired us in the writing circles.     We found freedom again in Mary Oliver’s famous poem, Wild Geese, which begins with the line, “You do not have to be good…” This permission to be and to create without passing judgment on ourselves must be a guiding principle of living poetically thus allowing the freedom to explore and to respond to what life offers to us in nature, family and neighbors.  Later in the same poem, she says, “the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting, over and over announcing your place in the family of things”.  We each have a place – a place to be and a place to take action.

With poetry, I want to gain a sense of rhythm for when to speak and when to be silent.  I want to find that  space between the notes, between the words.   I want to know I have a  place to stand and a place to rest.  I want to live in that spacious place called freedom.  I want to respond to life with my senses open to the poetry of living in the moment.

Our mini writing retreat later this month is called Poetic Living:Exploring the Beauty, Rhythm, and Spirit of Your Life.  Sunday afternoon April 25.  Click here to register or go to Events and Calendar for details.

 

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good. You
do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the
desert repenting. You only have to let
the soft animal of your body love what
it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and
I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world
goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear
pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the
clean blue air, are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh
and exciting— over and over announcing
your place in the family of things.

— from Dream Work by Mary Oliver

Season of Slowing Down

Tags

Book: A Child's Way, Retreat, Writing Inspiration

Long ago, people intuitively knew this was the season of slowing down. In ways we don’t remember, spirituality was connected to the earth and the seasons.  When the days grew shorter and the nights longer, people knew to go inward for the gift of their own inner light.  There was a hush – you can imagine.  How do we reconnect with this hush, this stillness that connects us with our selves, and our family and friends?

Whether you are celebrating Christmas, Hanukah, or Kwanzaa, the traditions of the holidays are meant to nurture and nourish us.  They are meant to help us feel connection with each other and to our spirituality.  If we get caught up in fulfilling all the traditions in some kind of holiday fantasy of perfection, it won’t nurture us –

Poetry from Mini Retreat

Tags

Retreat

Mini-Retreat July 19, 2009

 

 

The Path of the Poets  by Paul Matthews

The path of the poets has three stiles to cross

and an end uncertain;

at the first stile they blindfold you,

at the second stile you lose all sense of the way,

at the third style you enter a new country.

The guardians of the path provide

a dark woman on your left

to guard you at all time,

a bright woman on your right to guide you;

but she only takes your hand

after the first field is crossed.

The path of the poets is without words.

You must speak with bird-tongues.

After the second stile the woodpecker

begins to work inside you.

And when you reach the third stile

they’ll turn you round and around.

Let go let go and give yourself

into the hands of women.

The path of the poets is strewn with beechnuts

that suddenly roll from under you, and a magpie

screams at your from a hidden driveway.

Your name could make you blush.  If anyone comes

the women press you against the hedge and hide you.

On the path of the poets the rain sounds lonelier;

and in the bluebell wood beyond arriving

they will untie your eyes

and drop the poem in your lap at last.

Blessing Poem – One line written by each participant after time together in silence out in nature.  The words were pulled by each individual from their own writing inspired by natural elements.

May you delight in magic

May the ancient ones protect you

May you cherish the beauty,

strength, courage and destiny of the flower that is you.

May you recognize the intricate home in your soul

May you know that what you seek is on its way to you

as the web of life unraveling its richness before you

Circle Poetry from May Retreat- Opening to Grace

Tags

Retreat

In May, ten writing women gathered at the home of Maryanne in Atlantic Beach for an afternoon retreat called, Opening to Grace.  In silence, we explored the garden in pairs – a very intimate and enchanting experience.  When the bell rang,