A Retreat Outline

We withdraw, not only from the concerns of the world and its preoccupations but from the incessant monologue and concerns within ourselves, in order for something else to come into being.

Deena Metzger, Writing for Your Life

Here is an outline of what makes a retreat a retreat, the steps you will repeat each time, even on very brief retreat. It is a shorthand way of bringing the archetype to life. Refer to it when planning a retreat or if you are ready to get going right now and want to skip the details.

See A Woman’s Retreat.

• Prepare

Set an intention. Intention is what distinguishes your time off, makes it more than a vacation. Donna did the exercise in Intention not even knowing that she wanted to retreat and was astonished to learn she hoped to find a new direction for her life. Setting an intention requires setting aside time to prepare (often taking only a few minutes). This preparation sends a signal that you are serious about your time apart, that it is going to be uncommon, mindful, loving, and intentionally focused on you. Preparation also starts the process of slowing down and turning inward that is crucial to retreating. Even daily mini-retreats and retreats in the world benefit from a moment of preparation at the beginning of your time apart. To set your intention, complete the following statement:

See Intention for greater detail.

On this retreat, I intend to ask myself…

Keep it simple, open, and loving.

• Withdraw from Ordinary Life Through Ceremony and by Creating a Container

Withdrawal from ordinary life happens through symbolic action and by creating a safe space, either physically and/or emotionally, into which to withdraw. These are the signals to your psyche that you are entering altered time. Cynthia Gale speaks about her retreats this way: “What I try to do is make sure everything I do matters. So when I sit and have a cup of tea, I don’t just have a cup of tea, I think about what tea I’m going to have, where I’m going to sit, what direction I’m going to sit in, how that ten minutes is going to be different.” This effort at disengaging is especially important because you are not always able to leave, to go someplace, for a retreat, especially when working or when raising young children. You may have only a few minutes or hours to yourself. Withdrawal isn’t about the amount of time away or even your physical proximity to others. It is how much they occupy you when you don’t wish them to.

One of the great benefits of evoking the retreat archetype is the ability to withdraw into your own interior, sacred space. Choose or create such a space, your container. It could be your bed, your garden, a visualization of a place you love in nature, the crook of a tree, taking the phone off the hook and closing your office door, or a prayer of protective light and love surrounding you. Next, perform a symbolic ceremony to separate. This ceremony can be as involved as a sweat lodge or as simple as a purifying soak in the bath, slipping on a special shawl and staring at a candle, or reading a poem you love and then stepping over the threshold of your front door to go for a walk.

See Opening Ceremony and Where Will You Retreat?

• Listen in Sacred Space

Being in sacred, liminal space is perhaps the hardest part of the retreat to maintain in our modern world, especially when you are retreating in the world or for only a short period of time. Yet it is the heart of retreat, the place where the work of transformation takes place. You remain outside your daily life. You don’t do the dishes, answer the phone, take care of others, work, watch TV, listen to the news, read magazines, or do other everyday things. You arrange your time differently, doing what enlarges your intention and enables you to listen to your inner knowing. This can be done in a myriad of ways. You might ask yourself thought-provoking questions, write in your journal about how you are feeling or why you are retreating, move to music, meditate on metaphorical words from poetry or the psalms, visualize your Divinity blessing you, paint, walk on the beach, knit, or lie on your couch listening to music. The end result always places you gently in your center, working toward a truer and more authentic relationship with yourself. Silence and solitude have their place here. You can’t contact your wisdom and come to accept yourself without spending time alone in silence.

See What Will You Do, Courage, Contemplations, Good Ways to Listen, and all the Practices.

Another way you maintain sacred space is to push yourself out of your habitual comfort zone. By doing so, you shift your view of yourself and your life. For example, leaving your comfort zone might entail hiking alone on a local trail or being alone at your home with no TV and no phone. Shifting out of your comfort zone often creates anxiety and fear. Encountering your fear, not running from it, brings great richness to the retreat practice. That doesn’t mean putting yourself in danger, but it does mean leaving deadening comforts behind and being willing to take risks.

• Reemerge into Ordinary Space and Time

Reemerging into the world at a new place is the final act of retreating. It may seem the most straightforward and easy, but it is fraught with the difficulty of leaving sacred space and returning to ordinary space. You must acknowledge what you have done and where you have been and that you have been changed, even when your retreat has lasted for only a few moments. You can simply say, “I am returning from my retreat. I have done this, and this is why ________ (fill in your reasons for going or what you learned).” Give some thought to your reentry so that you don’t lose the gifts of your retreat too quickly in the daily array of demands. Bring back a talisman from your retreat—anything from a small rock to a vivid memory. Give thought to how you will communicate your experience to those you love, how you will physically reenter your work or home life, what would make the reentry easier.

See Returning Home, Closing Ceremony, and Living Your Retreat Every Day.

Good Supplies to Have on Hand

Here is a list of universally good retreat items to bring along. Don’t stress out over this; you can always improvise, do without, or change your mind. Keep it simple. Don’t let this list overwhelm you—a walk with nothing can be a retreat!

In addition to these, look under Prepare in each practice.

See Resources and Grieving for suggestions.

• Your journal and a pen.
• Basic drawing supplies—anything from markers to colored pencils to water-based paints. Whatever you have, want, and can afford.
• Big paper, ideally eleven by fourteen inches and thick. But any paper will do fine.
• Music that relaxes you and encourages your imagination; music that makes you want to move your body; music that puts you in touch with your deepest, wildest feelings, even grief.
• A way to play the music in your retreat space—a personal stereo or small boom box. Borrow one if you don’t have one.
• A book or two of metaphorical, spiritually sustaining, exquisite inspirational writing.
• A camera and film. Take pictures of yourself, of the light pouring through your living room curtains, the trees arching toward the sky, whatever captures how you are feeling in that moment, whether that is particularly wonderful or particularly awful. Create emotional snapshots to paste up in your life after your return.
• Nature, in the form of the wilderness, a park, a houseplant, a backyard, a bowl of rocks.
• A drum or rattle. You can make a rattle by putting small stones or gravel in a tin (tea tins work great). If you have children, borrow their musical toys. Jodie contemplated borrowing her son’s Curious George drum. Drumming may seem too New Age, Robert Bly, warm and fuzzy weirdo nonsense. It has been lampooned in more places than I care to think about. Yet it remains an ancient and extraordinarily powerful way to get out of your mind and into your imagination, to get your juice going. There is no right way to drum or rattle—allow yourself to experiment and take your time. It may take you a few minutes to get into a beat.
• Self-nurturing goodies like fresh bread, soothing lotions, delicate flowers, a velvety bathrobe.
• Special clothing. In Ann Linnea’s book Deep Water Passage, Christina gives Ann a magnificent purple wool sweater to wear on her kayak adventure-retreat. Ann is surprised because she has never worn anything so nice when camping. Christina reminds her, “Annie, you’re not just going camping. You must mantle yourself for the journey.” How will you mantle yourself for your journey? In what clothes will you feel creative or secure or luxurious or sensual or energetic or courageous? A fringed shawl, silk scarf, floppy hat, well-worn hiking boots?
• A touchstone, talisman, or other meaningful object that, by being held, worn, or seen will comfort and remind you of the love in your life, whether that love be from a lover, a child, or the Divine. Frankie fingered a tiny soapstone bear fetish in her pocket that reminded her of her lover. Sandy anchored her retreat by wearing an exquisite amulet given to her by a dear friend. A tiny wooden Buddha accompanies me. Georgia O’Keeffe carried at least one perfectly round stone.
• Mini-retreats and retreats in the world might benefit from a retreat bag or box that you keep with you or close at hand. In it go the things listed above as well as a bottle of water and whatever else you might need.

See Resources.

What Not to Have on Hand

• Work. No bill paying. No making a few phone calls or checking your e-mail. Not one contract or brief or bit of typing or student papers or mending or child’s costume to sew. NO! If you are retreating in the world, get away from your work, even if it means clearing off your desk or leaving your home.
• A phone. If on a long retreat you need to be available because of your children and business, ask whomever might call you to ring once, hang up, and ring again. Otherwise, unplug or hide the phone, even if you are only retreating for a few minutes. No beepers, faxes, or cellular phones, either.
• A watch or clock. You can tell by the sun when you need to return home. If you are living in Alaska in the dead of winter or in a skyscraper where no sun penetrates, or if you have only a few minutes or hours and must break at a very specific time, set an alarm. On a retreat in the world, take off your watch; even if it’s only for a few minutes, it helps.
• Newspapers, TV, talk or news radio, gossipy magazines, escapist novels, video games, computers, anything that will break the retreat spell. (You may choose to watch Oprah or read a fat Regency romance. Fine, as long as you are choosing and not avoiding, staying stuck in comfortable but outmoded patterns. Remember to check, “Does this support my intention?”)
• Negative people. Some of you will be using this material with a friend or group, or you may choose to have someone be your check-in person or retreat coordinator. If so, be sure this person is truly supportive. Or are you choosing or going along with a friend because you don’t want to hurt her feelings? Don’t waste your retreat time around people who drain, depress, or derail you. On the other hand, recognize that in almost any group situation, there will be tension, anger, misunderstandings, people you don’t like. If seen correctly, this discomfort can provide invaluable insights.
• Emotional baggage. I’m joking, but only a bit. What if you could leave behind a certain obsession, emotion, or worry? Which one would you choose? Write this baggage on a piece of paper, tie it around a rock, bless it, and leave it behind.

See What Will You Do: Check-in and Good Ways to Listen: Shadow Comfort.

See Courage: Support on Retreat.

See Retreating with Others.