Today begins a five day retreat with a group of Fire & Water participants. Wednesday night through Sunday afternoon we get to journey together. I’m so glad to be in person with all of the nuanced connection that comes from sharing meals, walks, learning, and recreation together.
It means that Quanita Roberson and I have been preparing. Getting ourselves emptied enough to listen well and to guide with intention.
It also means that I’m thinking meta narratives and intentions that guide not only this time together, but the way that this time lives sandwiched in the middle of a 16 month journey.
Medicine is definitely one of those meta intentions. We want people to feel buoyed by connection, by witness, and by community. We want people to feel wholeness in a spacious path together.
Timeless is also a meta intention. A taste. A remembrance. Yes, there are some aspects of chronos time that we will adhere to. But there is also a giant way in which we welcome kairos time — being in the flow of experience that returns us to flow.
A third that I’ll name is about alchemizing. I like the language of “alchemizing the soul.” It mean finding clarity and community in what we leave behind and what we walk ourselves into. All of that so as to get on with being and doing some of the deeper why in our lives.
A breath. And off we go, held wonderfully in the meeting space and the land of our home convening space, Hope Springs Institute.
