Reflecting on a spring and summer of travel, and a retreat you don’t need to travel to attend

This spring and summer I’ve taken three impactful trips:

• To the Bahamas to teach a dream program at the Sivananda Ashram and Yoga Retreat, then
• To The Netherlands to present a program on Joyful Dreaming at the International Association for the Study of Dreams conference, and most recently,
• To North Carolina where I was one of 36 poets accepted to the Yetzirah Jewish Poetry Conference.

Choose your own adventure:
You can read about any of the trips described above here (about my time at the Jewish Poetry Conference);  here (about my travels to the Dream Conference); and here (about my time at the Yoga Ashram).  

I’ve been home now for a few weeks (give or take a couple of days for a family visit that didn’t involve airplane travel). Although my suitcase has been emptied and stowed away in the closet for now, I am still, in many ways, unpacking from those adventures.

I didn’t fully realize during those trips how much I was taking in and being nurtured/inspired/challenged/affirmed and changed. Even now, those experiences are still unfolding in me.

Specifically, since I’ve been home from the Yetzirah Jewish Poetry Conference, I’ve been sorting through packets of poems, prompts and the legal pads covered in notes that I brought home with me. I’m also unpacking questions and concepts like these:

• Where do my love of craft and my desire to speak authentically from my soul converge—and are there places where they are in conflict with each other?
• What is the job of the poet in a time like this, when environmental upheaval and political dangers threaten our most basic assumptions about safety, sustainability, and stability?
• Where is the line (or is there one) between writing for pleasure, for discovery, and for publication?

I’ll be bringing those questions and more to the page again and again as I continue to settle back in at home.

Write every day! Here’s why:

Here’s my number one takeaway from the writing conference, which I hope will inspire and motivate all of you who love to dream and/or write.

Just as when we journal our dreams regularly we remember more dreams—so too, when we write regularly we have more to write! The ideas, like the dreams, know we are listening and they show up for us when we show up at the page. Try it. Starting today, write every day. Keep at it for a month at least. It can be 10 minutes or an hour or more. See where it takes you. (And report back!)

Speaking of packing and unpacking

I’ve been (literally) dragging my faithful companion: an olive-green nylon LLBean suitcase, behind me on countless trips for the past 15 years. Whether I’m travelling for a few days or a couple of weeks, for pleasure or business, I’ve never grown out of this carry-on-sized workhorse of a bag.

Until that is, when I traveled this summer with a friend who balked at my overstuffed, fading and fraying suitcase. She, meanwhile, glided through international airports with her compact hard-shell case, and when we got to the hotel she popped it open to expose a tidy array of pristinely organized packing cubes from which she was able to effortlessly locate each item she needed.

As a result I developed a strong  case of suitcase-envy, which helped me to finally accept the inevitable: It was time to say goodbye to my old friend the LLBean bag.

My brand-new roller-bag, complete with packing cubes, accompanied me on my most recent trip and made travel feel like, well, poetry in motion! 

One good reason to stay at home

If you love packing, traveling, and navigating through the circles of hell that are the necessities of modern airplane travel, good for you! (Really! I wish I were more adaptable and resilient when it comes to the rigors of flying.)

If you’re ready to stay home and dedicate a few days to your writing this summer—join my upcoming writing retreat, Aug. 16-19 online.

An at-home writing virtual writing retreat means you don’t have to pack a bag or board a plane. All that time can be devoted to what you’ve been wanting to do all summer long: WRITE!

Stay Home and Write Retreat

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