Turning In to Open Up

I think a part of me is still at Kripalu Center, hanging out in the quiet, staring at trees. I’ll be unpacking this trip and all I’ve received from it for ages but I wanted to share a taste. I hope the video gives you a sense of what it was like.

Jen: I went to Kripalu to assist Jennifer Louden at her Luscious Creative Comfort Retreat. Jen is a powerful coach and a best-selling author, a lover of poetry and movement. She is generous with her wisdom and her attention. Jen creates a very unique space for exploration – full of permission, acknowledgment and honesty, lots of honesty. I’m always learning from Jen. Concepts that were once seeds she planted have become cornerstones for me. From self-trust to “what’s learning you” to conditions of enoughness, I leave Jen’s retreat with rich, rich resources to draw on and to share.

Assisting: What a joy! I feel so blessed to have been in this circle of women and create opportunities to dance! We danced to find our rhythm, to recognize our own way of moving. We danced to connect to the earth and sky, to ourselves and to one another. And we danced our collages, finding our lines and shapes, embodying our dreams, our desires and our barriers too, feeling them in our body so we can recognize them and know they belong to us. This experience has me imagining what it would be like to spend three days with you, dancing, creating, laughing, sharing, unfolding our spirits in a beautiful space in a sacred time. I’m looking forward to that!

Travelling: One of my goals this year is to become a more confident traveller. Kripalu was the perfect solo trip to start with.I really appreciate your tips, strategies and reassurances. It meant the world! And I managed each step of the way – through customs, on the tiny plane, even dealing with a blackout and no subway on my return. And though the tiny plane was scary, it was better on the way home because I had more of a sense of what ‘normal’ was. A more confident traveler already!

Kripalu Center: The Center wasn’t quite what I expected. There was certainly more hustle and bustle, more families and more guys than I anticipated. There were people plugged into their cell phones and their laptops – but also plugged into their hearts, their bodies and themselves. The Center made me realize just how hungry I am for quiet and so in my own time, I made that my first priority. I loved that breakfast was eaten in silence and conscious eating of nutrition-rich food is one thing I’m definitely taking away with me.

Discovery: And my personal discoveries had so much to do with self-trust, really stepping into what I’m capable of, what I’m here for, what I’ve spent my life preparing to do. In a deep visualization I also tuned into some powerful information about my strengths and my nurturing self and something just ‘clicked’ about the way I am in the world. It’s very sacred to me and still very tender so I’m going to keep it close for now.

Poetry: It’s challenging to capture such a rich experience in words. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons why Jen so often turned to poetry on the retreat, sharing with us exquisite words to capture a feeling, an idea, a philosophy. And Joanna, one of the participants, took inspiration from that, writing her own poem to capture the experience of the Luscious Creative Comfort Retreat. I’ve asked her permission to share it with you so that her words could slip into your heart and let you feel, if just for a time, that you were with us there.

Distillation
Kripalu 2010

We sleep like girls-
in bunk beds
with sheets and blankets
messy on our shoulders and hips

As goddesses
we have spoken poetry
to the noise of our lives
and watched it dissipate
like morning mist

There’s something there
deep in the middle
of the labyrinth
As we dance in and dance out
the body knows its own joyful nurturance

We see the gift in the center
our own luscious hearts
softly singing “I found you…I found you”

What will we take into the world?
Images of creativity and love,
Our own good enough selves.

Joanna Meriwether

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