The Cosmic Inner Landscape

Creativity wells up from the cosmic inner landscape where the true Self abides. If we are free to meander in this landscape without expectation and need, our creativity becomes the wellspring of life in ways that cannot be imagined by the mind.

A Retreat for Creative Women: Journey of the Soul, Spirit of the Sea

My new house on Maine's rocky shore in Bar Harbor will be ready for this year's retreat! We call the house Rising Sun, for reasons that the above photograph, taken from the deck, makes evident! Nature infuses the house with views, light and color, awakening the senses in ways that are both exciting and calming. Beauty abounds, within and without.

I have been going to Bar Harbor and to Acadia National Park, literally within walking distance of the house, for almost 40 years. Merely to sit on the rocks and let the sun, the sky and the sea embrace me is the most calming, cleansing and nourishing experience I have ever had. This is sacred land, the perfect place to hold a this retreat for creative women on a spiritual journey.

Acadia is known as the place where the mountains touch the sea and as the days here flow in rhythm with the magic of the land, the sea and the air, you will experience at a visceral level what the poet, Maria Rainer Rilke, an exquisite observer of the creative life, meant when he wrote, "And then the knowledge comes to me that I have space within me for a second, timeless, larger life."

 

Over the years, the annual retreat for women has become an expression of the timeless, larger life whose promise lives within all of us. For creative women to explore their inner, spiritual journey through their creativity is an inspiring and magical journey.

Through our writing, our circle work, the sharing of meals that are culinary delights, and our relationships with each other, we begin to slough off our outer world self and enter the timeless space within. We begin to remember and then to embrace She who lives within each of us, that deeper, timeless larger space within — we begin to remember who we truly are.

Explore the Retreat 

 

 

After journeying and seeking for years, I believe that I finally have a sense of knowing a few of my inner truths -- I have a growing awareness that my life has been on a path driven by this knowing even when depression, anxiety and rage cloaked my truth with thorns. Looking back I see that the thorns were a gift. For without my rage, depression and anxiety, I would never have entered my own darkness. And without entering my own darkness, I would never have heard the song of my soul or found that stillness within that is home to a far more balanced and whole self than I ever dreamed possible. Without descending to my darkness, I would never have found the light that shines like an eternal flame on my truth that opened to the deepening of self into Self.

Recently, after a gathering of my Sunday Creativity Circle during which we had a lively, challenging and inspiring conversation about how deeply we hold our beliefs about our inner journey and own relationship to Spirit, I woke with these thoughts; they were so strong, I immediately wrote them down.

 

This I Believe

I am eternally safe in God.
God dwells in me as I dwell in God.
My journey in this life a to fulfill a sacred contract I made with myself before coming into this life. My sacred contract is to experience love and the connectedness of all creatures and all life.

Life is an adventure of huge proportions and not for the faint of heart. Life itself is the risk, and death walks beside me as a constant companion to assure me that there is nothing to fear.
Each moment I die to myself, I am reborn. It is only by letting go of my self and the world that I find myself and the world.

I believe this life is a culmination of a series of lives to bring me closer to knowing Self, love and God. It is a bridge into ever greater adventure.

I believe the challenges of living in a body are great.
I believe that they are meant to be the great school of the soul on its return to oneness.

I believe separation is an illusion of the flesh and the ego.
I believe leaving that separation and knowing the indwelling God is a challenge of huge proportions, one that can take me lifetimes .... or a second ... to embrace.

I believe that God is totally inclusive. That everything that exists in life is an expression of God without judgment or condemnation.

I believe without the dark we cannot see the light. Without the dark there is no growth, no birth, no death. Without the dark nothing would exist. Without the light nothing would grow.

 

I was amazed as I wrote this how calm I felt in putting into words the path which my journey into my stillness has brought me. I was surprised, too, and delighted in a way I have only felt when looking into my children’s smiling faces, or when I am lost to the greening of spring, the flaming mystery of a sunset or sunrise, a flower finally blooming after an endlessly long budding and the silent beauty of newly fallen snow. Such was the awe and delight I felt as these words came out of me.

I could not have written them, that much I knew. That is clear even as I sit writing these words. I, my small self, does know that I have such a sunrise within me. But I do. I know that now. Because reading those words and recalling how they flowed from my pen that early morning, feels like a coming home. This is what my spiritual mentor and friend, Ronda La Rue calls a living prayer. I understand that now. I understand that these words, these knowings, these yearning, this mystery that is my core, will deepen and guide me for the rest of my life.

I also knew that by allowing this opening to deeper self I was asking to be transformed in ways that would challenge my ego mightily.

With each passing moment,
a soul sets off to find itself.

                 ~ Rumi

Inner Vision, the Pathway for the Imagination

Inner Vision, the Pathway for the Imagination

• Inner vision has no fear of the unknown.
• Inner vision pierces the veils of mystery and magic and embraces paradox.
• Inner vision is innately the wandering pilgrim and fool who knows that getting lost is being found.
•  Inner vision is guiding light into our soul.

Creative success cannot be determined by the outside world. If you focus on that "prize" you are very likely to miss the real success, which is internal and deeply personal. The question becomes how to turn your sights inward? How to trust the inner vision as pilgrim, fool and intrepid guide in the shadowy and chaotic inner landscape? This demands courage, a leap of faith, a giving up of control and surrender. The result: a joyful expansiveness and freedom!