| A Different Kind of Retreat |
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A Different Kind of Retreat: Journal, May 5, 2007 by Roxyanne Young I am blessed with Goddess friends. It is a weekend in the late Spring of 2007. I'm at a women's spiritual retreat with the theme of facing life's tests with grace, vision, and faith. I am here as the guest of a Baha'i friend who knows what a trying couple of years I've had. She's gifted me with a weekend away at this retreat and her Baha'i sisters have welcomed me as they always have at their gatherings, with warmth and love. I feel safe here. We are gathered in the opening circle and we've passed a stack of virtue cards around the group of forty-some women. Each of us will read our cards in turn and speak our hearts. I am near the end, so I get to hear most of the others speak first. By the time it's my turn, I've already laughed, cried, ached, and rejoiced with these women. I read, my voice loud and strong. My card: Patience. Some may disagree, but I think I'm a very patient person...and that's where I'll stop because what is said in that circle stays in that circle. Can we ever really adapt to Change? This past month some pretty big changes have been happening in my life. The past few years, actually, but the past month in particular they've been coming to a head. Some good, some not, some have yet to prove out one way or the other. My challenge here this weekend, or treat, actually, is to walk the labrynth. It's my first, and something I've wanted to do for years, ever since reading Crossing to Avalon by Jean Shinoda Bolen. It is a transformative book that I highly recommend to women at any stage of life where great change is happening. I was so moved by it, I actually wrote her a letter thanking her for it, and she wrote back. I saved that letter. I loaned my copy to someone long ago. I need to go buy a new one. Contemplation, or Things that Make You Go Hmmmm As I write this, I am sitting at a picnic table under a slatted roof, with a small knoll of flowers behind me, the labrynth a bit down to the left, set amid a broad hillside of wild grasses mixed with alyssum, and a canyon rolling out before me. I hear birds chirping, the occasional caw of a crow, the buzz of some insect (I'd like to say it's a honey bee, but it's flying too fast and the bees are dying off, anyway, heaven help us.) I'm watching for red-tail hawks and other wildlife, but so far I've just heard the birds and bugs. This space is supposed to be inhabited with angels and nature spirits and small elementals, too. I'd love to meet a few of them, as well, but I'm content with the birds for company. This place, Questhaven, is at the very end of the road in a remote part of north San Diego county known as the Elfin Forest. I'm not kidding. You can look it up. It's all chapparal, except for the pines, oak, and a variety of flowering trees brought here and hand-planted by the retreat founder, Flower Newhouse, a spiritual leader from the mid-20th century. I'm sitting on the very edge of the landscaped area, looking over at the natural canyon that has been left as it was found. Not changed. So, patience. Moving forward with hope that things will work out right. It said that on the card. I think I do that most of the time, to such an extent I'm often genuinely surprised when things don't work out right. On Thursday I learned that my job at the school library is going to go to one of the teachers next year. She is working on a research project to improve the functionality of elementary school libraries, the kind of project that will grow into a replicable model for other schools in our district, and beyond, but to do it, she needs to work in the library, so...I'm job hunting. I wrote a letter to the principal on Friday thanking her for the opportunity to help build the library and that I hope the books I brought in will be used well in the teacher's research project and become part of a model framework for other schools. For that I will happily step aside and wish her well moving forward. And I meant every word. Still kinda smarts, though. But it's an opportunity, right? Wide open opportunity. And this is why it terrifies me. I have nothing standing in the way of my spending the whole summer writing. This is my summer - my shot, if you will - to get these manuscripts I've been too busy to work on finished and sent out. This is my summer to either say, yes, I'm a Writer, or not. Cue the heavy drama music. For years I've run SmartWriters.com, but I have yet to really take myself seriously as a writer. I've helped other people get published. Dozens of them. I've helped people polish their manuscripts. I've promoted our W.I.N. people to editor friends. I've encouraged and cajoled others into getting it done. I've critiqued manuscripts for friends that are now published. So why am I so frightened to take this step myself? Am I more afraid of failure, or of success? I guess this is where the patience comes in, with a healthy chunk of faith in myself to figure it out. Moving forward with the hope that everything will work out right. Caution: Hairpin Turns Ahead One thing about a labrynth, which I learned the hard way, you can't rush it. If you do, you get dizzy. Labrynths are for taking, slow deliberate steps. You begin by setting your intention and then you take a step, following the path, knowing that in spite of all the twists and turns, you will come out at the end, but you can't rush, or you'll get dizzy. How's that for a Life Lesson? Speaking of Life Lessons... A couple of things I picked up this weekend: Achieving spiritual integration and healing is a choice, and choosing Inner Peace is in my own power. No one else's. And one really cool thing I picked up from W.I.N. entrant Keri Collins a year or so ago: Being a Goddess is an inside job. So is being a writer. No one can write this book but me. And no one can write your book but you. So get on it. Set your intention and take that big step. Roxyanne Young is taking that next big step to being a full-time writer, and this summer she's hosting several teleseminars with Bruce Hale designed to help other writers do that very thing - how timely! She'll also be presenting at the SCBWI National Conference in LA in August. |
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