Wasting Soul Time

I just returned from a solo retreat this weekend.

This is something I declare frequently during the course of the year.  I need frequent respite from the world and its incessant yammer.  I need a space where my thoughts are free to meander uninterrupted, where noise is defined by rushing water and birdsong, and where my gaze is captured by nature’s restorative tableau.

Francis Weller, whom I consider a soul mentor, articulates beautifully that the two sins of civilization are amnesia and anesthesia: forgetting and going numb.  I go away on retreats to remember and feel.  To walk the labyrinth back to my gut and heart.  The world is set up so perfectly to cajole us away from the cave within us and to cage our attention in frivolous velocities.  If there is a home within us, finding my way back takes work. 

Prior to departing on this lovely retreat weekend, I on-ramped like a champ: I rented a cabin in the woods with an entire wall of windows looking into the trees.  The cabin was surrounded by a soundscape filled with echoing birdsong, a rushing overfull creek and vicissitudes of wind in the leaves.  I had planned, prepared and frozen my homemade soups and stews.  I had my yoga mat and my mace, so the movement plan was covered.  In the weeks prior to departure, I had written in my journal faithfully so that I knew what was stirring in me.  The only thing left to do was arrive at this cabin and listen for chirps from my soul.

Retreats help me reconnoiter with my innards.  As I sat in that lovely cabin and pondered who am I again?  Why am I here?  Oh, my life’s half over?  The clock’s ticking…  The stakes are high.  Shit.  I think I’ll binge watch Daisy Jones and the Six for the second time.

And so I did.

For as many years as I have prepared and curated solo retreats, and for as much of a system as I have in place to get away, I also have a lot of experience turning this sacred pocket of time into profane fluff.  Several perspectives are elicited from my various inner selves when I don’t fall willingly into the arms of my beautiful plans:

• Judgments about my abysmal failures, authored by a boring perfectionist

• Unconditional acceptance from an overly indulgent grandma, and

• Practical inquiries from my alter ego sister-to-myself: “What could go better next time?”

If there is a running theme in the banal ecstasy of going off-plan, it is avoidance.  On one hand, solitude can be a tool for escape and withdrawal from the world.  But when you finally manage your liberation, there you are.  

And there again in the throes of my liberation from the Loud World was Daisy Jones and the Six.  And Guardians of the Galaxy.  And the Black Panther sequel.  All viewable on a melatonin-vanquishing, retina blasting large screen, which successfully dismantled every phase of sleep I might have enjoyed over three nights.  

I, Queen and King and Duchess and Paramour and Supreme Ruler of the Solo Retreat, had deserted my solitude dominion to double-down on those sins of civilization: forgetting and numbing.  Lather, rinse and repeat until the last day, when I woke up further from my inner cave than when I set out on this little adventure.

Ignoring my inner world, whether in my daily habits or during periodic withdrawals from civilization, generates a background hum in my gut and chest that is less than pleasant.  The longer I surrender to distractions (lovingly and generously lavished on me by streaming services), the more the feelings of unease ratchet up.  It seems that we humans attend to our business when or after we arrive at the moment of discomfort that exceeds what we can endure.  

Luckily, the Accelerated Retreat Process is a heroic specialty of mine when I go off the sinning rails: I use the last day to wrap it all up in a ritual bow of

Write in the journal
Meditate
Pull cards from the archetype deck
Make space for a few insights
Understand how I might bring those into right action in my non-retreat life
Say thank you to the cabin
Pack up and
Return to the Muggle world.

What could have gone differently?

Realizing that between the time I plan the retreat and the time I arrive, my perceived Need for the retreat may have shifted.  Had I given myself space and time to feel into what I actually need the moment I step over the threshold of my retreat venue, it would have, at the very least, kept that inner connection intact.  It is quite possible that the retreat would have progressed in exactly the same way: small molecules of contemplation in an ocean of binging shows and movies. 

When I initially planned the retreat, I was craving Solitude (a space of non-interruption, quiet, and beauty) to better understand the fuzzy anxieties stirring in me.  When I arrived at the cabin, I think I needed some story to connect to.  Some myth.  I had enough in my gas tank to receive and take in, but not enough to generate and contemplate.  In the face of my Big Questions, all I could do was retreat from the retreat.  

Layers of ritual and effort are put into creating a multi-day retreat. By saying Yes to this time alone, I say No to other invitations and possibilities.  I spend money, I prepare by meditating more regularly and focusing my writing in my journal.  The retreat is time spent on a continuum of inspiration, plan the plan, do the plan, return and integrate the plan.  And listen as the Goddess faintly giggles that I made a plan to begin with.  Summoning my resources and laying my body, mind and spirit at the altar of solitude is Work.  Work worth doing, but Work.

All of this preparation followed by a streaming binge indulgence might make my inner perfectionist (the boring one) harshly judge the disjunct between the idea of the retreat plan (quiet contemplation and gazing into the soul of nature) and its execution (watch a show, movie, show, show, movie, etc.). To this I respond There is no perfect retreat.  It’s all grist for the mill.  Fodder for the soul.

Staying attuned to the Need that a retreat is meeting, and how that Need may shift as you enter retreat, will help keep perfectionism at bay.  It will also increase the felt sense of permission for the retreat as an emergent experience, as opposed to a tasklist to conquer.

Don’t NOT make a plan. Instead, make a plan and allow it to guide or nudge you as opposed to controlling you.