With stammering lips and insufficient sounds,
I strive and struggle to deliver right
the music of my nature….
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
The president gives state of the union addresses. Children have quarterly reviews with their teachers about how they are doing. Bosses dispense yearly performance reviews. But where is the routine assessment of what matters most, the state of your soul? Where is the time for simple reflection?
Now is the time to report on how your inner life is informing your daily decisions, not from a logical place but from an intuitive place. This is the time to ask, “How am I doing?” and to wait for the answer from within.
Try to do this practice all in one sitting. Be aware that boredom or an inability to focus is often a sign that you simply are out of practice focusing on yourself. Persist by using kindness and your sense of humor. If you get stuck or feel uninspired, try using a different medium. For example, if you are using spontaneous drawing but after a few tries you feel bored, switch to movement.
Prepare
Choose one or more ways to explore the questions given here. You might write in your journal on one question, dance another, do a visualization with another, then make a collage. Or meditate on all the questions and then write a list or story. Gather whatever materials you may need for your chosen medium of exploration:
See Contemplations and Good Ways to Listen.
See Resources.
Drum.
Music to dance to.
Drawing supplies.
Clay.
One or two things to entertain your senses with—a bite of something luscious, a whiff of a favorite perfume.
Have your supplies all ready to go.
Center and calm yourself in whatever way you choose.
Close your eyes. Imagine yourself in your environment, your habitat, your home. (If you are retreating at home and no one else is around, walk around your environment first, then sit down and close your eyes.) Resist viewing your rooms in any categorical or logical fashion. See what associations come up when your mind drifts with the words shelter, sanctuary, hearth, refuge, the ones I live with, design, sound, smell, comfort, safe. Place your hand on your belly. When you have contemplated home for a few minutes, using your medium of choice (journaling, painting, sculpting), explore these questions:
Take a few deep breaths. Close your eyes. Focus on your work. Turn the notions of profession, calling, project, life’s work, responsibility, purpose, business around in your heart. Forget going through a typical day at work. Float instead in whatever sensations and images arise. If you feel yourself becoming depressed, judgmental, or anxious, take several deep breaths and then observe that feeling. You are not that feeling, but what can it teach you? When you wish, ask yourself:
Once again, unravel, analyze, explore these questions in whatever medium you wish. If you feel stuck, try a new medium. If you always do journal writing, try movement or talking into a tape recorder.
Stretch, breathe, get comfortable, and close your eyes. If you like, put your hand on your heart or hug yourself. What comes to mind when you reflect on love? On attachment, intimacy, commitment, relationship, joining, surrender? What faces float to mind? What scenes? What joys? What longings?
Work with these questions.
Close your eyes and breathe deeply. Scan your body. How do you feel in your envelope of flesh? Concentrate on images of your sexuality. What does your sexuality look like, taste like, sound like? Do you know her? Do you like her? What is the state of your libido, your passion, desire, vulnerability, orgasm, fantasy, tenderness, physical closeness? Try exploring these questions with your body, using movement:
Close your eyes and assess the relationships in your life. Spend a few minutes with each of the important people in your life—your mate, children, mother, father, friends, enemies, work mates, roommates, family, clergy, women’s group, and reading circle. Forget order of importance and see who comes to mind. Write about your feelings. Ask yourself as each person comes to visit:
Close your eyes and allow an image of your creative life to come before you. (Don’t skip this section because you think you have no creative life. Living a creative life means living in a way that reflects the unique you.) Contemplate the words create, invent, choose, alive, surprise, imagination, challenge, seeing something familiar for the first time, reaching, reframing, dreaming.
What do you wish to create with these questions that would bring verve to this realm? What medium could you explore? Finally, close your eyes one last time. If you like, ask for a blessing or say a prayer. Now focus on your spiritual life. What images, feelings, scenes arise? Expand past the obvious (church, spiritual group, walking in nature). Where does holy, remarkable, illuminated, turning it over, wisdom, faith, nurturance, awe, bliss, circle, centered, inner truth, God, Goddess, Divine, Beloved, transformation, redemption take you? Place your hands on your body where the Divine resides.
You may feel tired, overwhelmed, and depressed or exhilarated, thrilled, and ready to move to Paris, become a diva, and drink only expensive champagne. However you feel in this moment, now is not the time to act. It is the time to affirm your trust and faith in yourself. Create a brief ritual of promise. I like to light a candle and pray. Some people like to draw up simple contracts with themselves, setting a date by which they will do a certain thing. All that matters is that you make a solemn promise to yourself to honor the insights and promptings that have just emerged, when the time is right. A favorite prayer of mine for this moment is
Dear Great One,
May I have faith in myself and your energy.
May I remember my truth, my spark of life, my gift.
When I am lost in the pit of despair and can’t even make a collect call for help,
May I trust that I will find my way back to my truth, to these insights that I have found today.
Help me to co-create the best life for myself and for all those I love.
So may it be.
And so it is.
Stories
Diane is a mother of two young children, a writer, and the co-owner of a computer imaging company.
It was a rainy Saturday morning and I was trapped inside a small house with two restless children. My newspaper was soggy, crusty dishes were in piles everywhere, and my period was due at any moment. Trapped in the netherworld of parenting without so much as a drop of milk for my coffee.
By 10:30 A.M. I had already screamed at everyone, cried twice, and considered an alternative lifestyle. None of these activities improved my situation, so I turned to the only thing that really helps me in these times: a good soak. There is an indoor pool near my house that is heated to 90 degrees. I packed up my family for an amniotic Band-Aid.
While my husband and kids were playing in the shallow end, I slipped off to the deep end and floated around on a kickboard. Noticing how tense I was, I put the board under my back and, face up, enjoyed the sensation of effortless, pointless movement.
I closed my eyes and let my feet and ears dangle under the water, shutting out sound and sensation. I was in retreat. I consciously began to check in with each part of my body as I floated around. I could hear my children, but the water softened and muted their voices.
I spent a few minutes floating, softening tension, and reviewing my life.
I glided toward the shallow end and noticed that the nearer I got to my family, the more I had to make little adjustments in my balance to stay afloat. Their activity caused little ripples that unsteadied me unless I corrected myself on my kickboard. A few times I let myself be toppled over, and then, face down, I’d concentrate on relaxing every muscle in my body, beginning with my extremities and moving toward my center. Then I’d stick my head out for air, fill my lungs, and reposition the board below me again.
This went on for some time, until I headed back to the deep end. I contemplated this little exercise and how it related to what was working and not working in my daily life. Eyes closed, I thought about how each day my children and I reenact this same scene; their lives send ripples into mine, and I try to adjust and balance myself to avoid being thrown over completely. Sometimes I do flip, and go facedown into a dead man’s float, like this morning. When that happens, I know I must consciously remind myself to soften, and take time to take care of my needs. Literally and figuratively, I recognized that I must have my own support in place so that I can respond to the waves my children make.
I slowly lifted my head out of the water, and the sound of my children’s voices sounded musical and joyous to me. I opened my eyes and looked at them, and they appeared to me as perfectly formed parcels of trust and love. A wave of tenderness washed over me as I joined them in the shallow end.
For Long Retreats
Include areas of your life that I have missed. Get creative with the mediums you use. Try ones that require more preparation or time, such as making a mask, doll, or earth shrine.
See Contemplations.
For Mini-Retreats
Close the door of your office or sink into the couch while dinner cooks, before the kids get home. Pick one or two areas to ask yourself about, the ones that feel most out of balance. Do that part of the practice as meditation or visualization or through journal writing. The questions many women use for this kind of check-in are
See Retreat Plans: A One-Hour Getting Current Retreat.
For Retreats in the World
This is an especially good practice to do while hiking, canoeing, running, working in an art studio, or looking out from a tall building or after doing service work at a hospice or retirement home.
For Retreats with Others
After doing the practice on your own, come into a deep listening circle. Each woman asks for feedback from the others on one or two areas of her life. One way to ask for feedback is “What does my work life look like to you? What do you think I need more or less of?” If you are retreating with people who know only certain sides of one another, you may have to limit your questions to those areas. For example, a group of eight women who met regularly to support one another in their creative pursuits retreated together. They used this practice to give feedback to each woman on four areas of her creative life: work (getting projects finished, trying to sell, getting paid on time), risk taking, feeding the creative spirit, and developing technique. As always, it is imperative to use the circle guidelines with great care and loving-kindness.
See Retreating with Others: Deep Listening Circle.