This weekend, Alive & Well Women hosted a beautiful day retreat and I was so blessed to be there.  Spending the day with other women creating, resting, asking, and laughing is just what my soul needed. It was what we all needed.

In the morning hours, we had an hour and a half to be alone in the beautiful Monrovia mountains to read, sketch, and write.  Surrounded by the beauty of Mother Earth, taking in all of her offerings of the day, my body settled and felt embraced in Love.  I wrote one of the offerings below and wanted to share it here.

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke

Surrounded, by Staci Kennelly

I am surrounded
by the gentle breeze,
by the smell of sweet sage.
by the sway of the golden grass.

I am surrounded
embraced, but not captive,
held, but not bound,
possessed but not owned.

I am surrounded.
Surrounded.
Surrounded.

Enveloped by the gentle yielding of her lavish bosom,
breathing in the sweetness of her bountiful grace,
allowing my soul to bend and sway in her liberating love.

I am surrounded.

Darkness Cover Me, by Sara Thomsen

Darkness Cover Me
like a blanket of night
Oh, cover me lightly

Shadows gather around me
Deepening darkness,
Whispering softly

Holy Maker of Moonlight
Singing through starlight
Keeper of all life

Hidden Seed deep in the dark soil of the earth
Fertile Ground, Womb of the Night, bring us new birth

Don’t forget to take time for yourself- whether you write, walk, laugh, or simply nap.  If you are in the Southern California area, I highly recommend following Alive and Well Women (click here for link) to receive information about their events.