Orcas Island Retreat November 2008

Thank you to everyone for the collective wonderful experience of being at Orcas retreat fall 2008. We have had such a wonderful time keeping in touch and waiting and receiving the beautiful gift of Kris's photo's. This took us all back there instantaneously and renewed and rekindled our personal commitments.

Here are the poems and wrings I promised to post.

The Knowing
I have been waiting DEEP because of a knowing
I feel an anticipation,a longing a sense of I can't wait.
And now I am here!
I have been waiting SECRETLY because of a knowing
My body that supports me and yet sometimes fails me,has brought me to this place.
I have been waiting DEEP,SECRETLY,and with LONGING
My emotions that take me to the edge,to the edge so I can touch hope,wonderment and the aliveness feel to be here NOW.
I have been waiting with HOPE because of a knowing
I have been waiting DEEP,SECRETLY,with LONGING and with HOPE for this
For Now, not someday,but right now,and the knowing, the knowing is knowing who I am!


The Thread
There is a line
I feel a thread, a very delicate, venerable, safe yet fragile line.
This thread, this beautiful golden thread is my Balance.
Where I live is here. In the space of my most recent past,I have fully experienced my fault,and openly had to admit my blame. The following day I sat next to a friend and just held my hands on her chest on her cancer scars.
So that we could breath into her fear, so we can find the soft sweet release of being in our pain and not let the story turn it into suffering.
Here we found the stillness.
In my greatest moments of joy there is the same tear I cry in sorrow.
The salt from my body the same.
From the balance, from the hammock I lay in that sways me, in the balance and it lets me be me.
living Here.
Living Now.
Living so I can know me.
I choose to live on that Golden thread that sways.

Lessons from Paula

How do we be both the observer and the participant!
In this struggle lies Madness!
It divides us it splits us
To dwell on the next activity when the truth is right in front of us splits our capacity to feel.
To dwell on our own body while making love to another splits our capacity of two hearts bonding as if one.
To dwell on our own reward while preforming a kindness splits us from our chance to be authentic.
When we are looking into the eyes of a dear one.......we look into the eyes of a dear one
when we sit in our cars at the bus with our daughter, we are doing just that sitting in the car with our daughters

Trust

I am standing high on a mountain of trust
Looking back over all the hills and valleys in the distance.
I trust because I have been scared, I trust because I have felt the panic in the moments of unknowing.
Now I know this far along my walk of life that I will journey on.
To walk with trust in my pocket.
That I will remember that in the deepest moments of pain,confusion,disbelief,fear and sorrow that I have trust and I know Freedom!
On the mountains close to the heavens, where the winds of all life's experiences touches me most.
This is where I go.
This is where I trust
this is where I know me.
I surrender, to the stillness and the silence, the willingness to trust my beingness and I know FREEDOM
High on my Mountain of Trust!

My Passion

To be in a life so connected to others.
So entwined with just looking into another's eyes, the knowing, the seeing, the being
So in love and so loved

And yet the yearning for solitude
The yearning for the place where the whole world stands still.
Where my greatness, my passion lives.
Here no one can touch it, talk about it, judge it or even describe it.......and yet
To share my expression of it is to be in the world.
To be in this world is my greatest service and my greatest work.
To be the reflection to let the wisdom shine though and allow others to be inspired,
To have them know themselves in the place where their whole world stands still
This is my passion and OH
what a Juxtapose I live.