I have spent this week guiding TEALarbor stories’ annual long retreat; today is our last day together.
Here is what I posted on my website last year upon concluding the week-long retreat for 2019:
Guiding last week’s retreat was very gratifying for me! For five days (starting on 7/29/19), people who had flown in from out of state came to Bainbridge Island and sat on the land. We explored themes: visionary ideas, pathways to clarity, inspired progress, beauty and problem-solving, designs for completion. We roamed around some of the island’s incredible natural areas and let the land hold us as we took one deep dive after another into inner and outer landscapes. We reserved early AMs and PMs for individual project work, writing, visual arts, rest, walking/jogging … In protected areas, we explored and learned about the natural history and how that informs our creative journeys. By the end of the week, retreatants had journaled, painted and done other visual art forms; worked on their projects; and had a solid plan for moving forward with/completing their creative intentions. Indeed, we all journeyed into something powerful outside of and within ourselves. In addition to the lovely participants and the luscious landscapes, we were given exquisite summer gifts that ranged from refreshing light rains, to hot sunshine, to breezes and bald eagles, herons, osprey, a fawn and its mom, dragonflies, seascapes, forest trails, and pondside delights of all sorts. I continue to be amazed and grateful for those who come to this work and immerse themselves so wonderfully in the healing, nurturing, inspiring places Earth has to offer.
It is a supreme blessing to have this opportunity each year. While I am not ready to write about this year’s week-long retreat - I post this blog in the morning and the retreat won’t even conclude until later this afternoon - I do know I have been changed by it. Though our group time convened via Zoom, in deference to COVID-19’s powerful hold on human life right now, we have taken individual journeys this week into our respective geographies’ floral and faunal pathways … Ah! Reconnection is afoot…
Consider joining a shorter seasonal retreat (Saturdays near the equinoxes and summer solstice)...
(The photos here are from the 2019 retreat.)
