Dear Creative Friends,
Krista Tippett of the On Being Project wrote earlier this week about this time we are living in:
"How extraordinary it feels, for those of us in places of the world that are opening up, to do ordinary things like hug people and walk unmasked into common spaces and even just be at the office. Yet: how strangely, puzzlingly unnerving it all also can feel.
We are, on many levels, in a new chapter - following on the multiple chapters of the past 18 months. This is a time of transition. It's a liminal space emotionally, psychologically, physically, institutionally, relationally.
Part of what we need to do now is rest, as we are able. To let ourselves fall apart, perhaps. Throughout the pandemic, it’s been hard to fully articulate what was happening inside us and how that was ricocheting between us. Now, we are in a new moment, called to feel what we need to feel, to find words and new intelligence of practice in all the spaces we inhabit and work in and relate in. To acknowledge what we’ve survived, what we’ve lost, what we’ve begun to learn.
We’re also called to really internalize — and this is challenging for many of us, I speak for myself — that this matter of being alive now, of rising to what we’ve begun to learn in an extraordinary time in the life of the world, is not something we’re supposed to know how to do or to take up alone."
How do we process all this? I encourage you to find ways that work for you - walking on the beach, journaling, painting, playing in a visual journal, making SoulCollage® cards, walking the labyrinth, reading, meditating - these are all ways to allow ourselves to process and integrate how the past eighteen months have changed us and how we want to live into the next part of our lives. We have all changed in ways we can't yet see clearly.
Personally, I've been walking the beach, letting the water and the waves soothe me. It will be many more miles of beach walking and looking out at the horizon before I completely integrate the past 18 months which included moving from our home of 24 years and the death of my mother. My walking and creative processes are also a way to handle the sadness and concern I feel around the devastation that has taken place this week in my birth place of Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
Despite the uncertainty of these times, I am continuing to offer in-person retreats at the beautiful and nurturing St Francis Springs Retreat Center in Greensboro, NC. I believe slowly moving into community when you feel comfortable doing so is a way to start moving into the new life that is waiting for us. I have however, asked that those attending be vaccinated, to ensure that all participants feel safe and comfortable.
