Like all my books, this is a reference book, a thesaurus of sacred solitude. It can be used to retreat in any amount of time, for any reason, and, hopefully, for many retreats. Most important,
There is no one way.
The instructions and practices offered here are completely malleable. Alter them, rewrite them, scramble them, use a bit of one practice mixed up with a fragment of another: write your own retreat book. Skip around; you don’t need to read the whole book before you retreat, nor do you need to read the chapters in order. Read and do only what interests or compels you. If you love herstory, read A Woman’s Retreat. If you want to jump right in, read A Retreat Outline. If you are struggling with the desire to retreat but are not able to make the time, read The Call to Retreat and Courage. If you are someone who hates instructions, skip to the section called Practices. When on retreat, if you start to feel lost, bored, or anxious, look at Uncomfortable Beginnings, Middles, and In-Betweens or jump into a practice that interests you. Make the book your own. Reinvent the retreat.
Overview
The book is divided into six parts. Naming, Shaping, and Saying Yes is the planning section. It outlines what a retreat is. In studying women’s herstory and talking to various wise women and men, I found the archetype of retreat, the basic map, the container into which you pour the elements of retreat and cook them into your own unique gumbo. Here is where you choose what season or style of retreat you wish to do: a long retreat (two days or longer), a mini-retreat (one day or less), shared retreats (using a small group or a friend to support and frame your solitude), or a retreat in the world (retreats that take place partially or completely in public places).
Beginnings details how to create an opening ceremony. This section also gives basic retreat practices, the bread and butter of listening to yourself.
Practices offers exercises to help you address specific issues. These practices are called practices for a reason: they are never finished, nor is there a “right” way to do them. They gain meaning through repetition.
Tips on what practices work well together can be found in Retreat Plans, and in the Intention Chart in the middle of the book. Each practice also includes instructions at the end of each chapter for expanding it on a long retreat, for condensing into a mini-retreat, for exploring it on a retreat in the world, and for adjusting it for a shared retreat.
A few practices require a degree of preparation. Before you retreat (especially if you are planning a long retreat or are traveling to your retreat location), read Prepare under the practices you might do. If something feels like too much bother, shorten or skip your preparation time. The basic supplies to have on hand are listed under A Retreat Outline. Experiment. Take one retreat in which you do little or no preparation. Then create one in which you slowly, deliciously, explore each preparation step, intuition in hand. What is the difference for you? Whatever you do, please, don’t use getting ready as an excuse not to retreat.
Ending is about bringing your retreat home. This is the most neglected area of retreating and one I hope you won’t skip over. It is crucial to give time and energy to ending your retreat experience, even if it has been very brief and seemingly uneventful. You also need to bear in mind your reentry into ordinary life. Read Returning Home before or on your retreat.
Retreating with Others is about retreating with a friend or small group as a support and frame for your solitary retreat. When I created this section, I imagined you would be doing the bulk of your retreat alone and then joining others for ceremony, reflection, discussion, and support. That said, you could adapt these practices for any kind of retreat you like or for a retreat with a lover.
Retreat Plans includes eleven retreat blueprints. These blueprints outline a few ways you could combine practices, play time, and your own spiritual discipline. If you are feeling overwhelmed about doing a retreat on your own, you could choose the plan that most closely fits with your intention and use that to help you get started. Included in this section are several ultrashort retreats especially designed for busy women.
The suggestions offered here reflect my research, the areas I and others have been led to address through retreat. These suggestions do not exhaust the possibilities for retreat, which are endless. To provide you with other ideas, I put together Resources, a compilation of books, tapes, videos, and other sources.
The Intention Chart can be used as an index to find a particular section within a chapter, if you are having trouble forming an intention, or when looking for practices that fit your intention.
What will hopefully emerge from these offerings is your own patchwork quilt of retreating, your own singular style of sacred time, sitting and talking with your authenticity. I hope you will spiral through this work again and again, fashioning and living new perspectives each time.