Lunaea Weatherstone's Blogue

Minnosota women's retreat

It's been on my to-do list for ages to spread the word about the offerings and services from my Silver Branch priestess sisters, who are a multi-talented group of women indeed. Two of our priestesses, Becky and Rue, are holding a Samhain retreat at Becky's beautiful Camp Stanton Seasons of Joy retreat center in the Brainerd Lakes area in northern Minnesota, about 145 miles west of Duluth and 170 miles northwest of the Twin Cities. Both Rue and Becky are wise and caring priestesses, whose service to the Goddess involves helping women find the deep connection within themselves to all that is sacred. The following are Becky's words about the upcoming retreat; if you can't make this one, but feel called to visit another time, I know she would love to hear from you!

It is time for another retreat. I love this time of year, the quieting and color changes and the cozy feeling that pulls us inward. Women have been coming here now for over nine years and leave feeling refreshed and inspired. Retreats here are very simple and a time to care for yourself with rest, wholesome home-cooked food, and the companionship of other lovely women yearning to live a more retreatful lifestyle. From my experience of hosting retreats I have observed the desire of women who want to find a way to schedule their days to have more time for holistic self care, or to use other words, women craving to live each moment as sacred. To live this way is to slow down and begin to see what really is important in your life and what can be discarded. This is a constant process, like keeping house and tending to our love relationships. Camp Stanton Seasons of Joy is a safe place to explore how living in a sacred way moment by moment can be accomplished, step by step! Join us as we support and encourage one another, express our emotions and challenges as we take those steps in allowing our natural spirited Self to rebirth and guide us to recreate our lives into an wholesome sacred world.

RETREAT: Friday, October 28 to Sunday, October 30, 2011. Check in Friday anytime after 1pm, arrive by 5:30, dinner is at 6pm, followed by a check-in circle. Saturday brunch at 10am, guided walk in the woods, dinner at 2pm and a light evening meal, Samhain ceremony Saturday night. Feel free to dress in costume for the ceremony (weather permitting we will be outside around a fire). All activities and ceremonies are optional; this is your retreat time and you get to do what you want.

Sunday brunch around 11am, followed by the closing circle, then check-out is around 1pm or 2pm. You are welcome to walk the trails and the labyrinth or spend time on the grounds or at the medicine wheel before you drive home. Fee for weekend is $120 (includes meals mentioned above, sauna available); please plan to attend the entire weekend. For more information, email bstanton@uslink.net.

Learning my way around

Most of my friends now have GPS in their cars or on their handheld brain devices, so any discussion of how to get somewhere involves asking the geographical oracle for instruction. Personally, I don't believe in GPS. It seems like another way to devolve basic human skills, and being able to find your own way around feels like an important one. I've been learning my way around Portland for about seven months now (I’ve just about mastered the Southeast quadrant), and I've been enjoying the delights of using an actual paper map. Besides the advantage of being able to choose my own routes and learn all the byways as well as the highways, I can see the big picture, literally, and orient myself in the geography. I can see the direct paths as well as the meandering ones. I can see that I’m going to be within a block of the river, so a quick zip down a side street might be worth the extra minute it takes to glimpse the sparkling water -- and along this serendipitous way, to see an intense psychic conversation happening between two pure white cats.

A GPS just wants to get you there. A map shows you where you are right now, the X that marks the spot where you stand in the sacred landscape, between the river and the mountain. I always feel like an explorer, an adventurer, as I unroll my map and roll it back up again, stow it away and head out on the road. As I learn my way around my new home town, I see it as a metaphor for learning my way through my life, as we all do. It's not about getting to the next point as quickly as possible, using someone else's directions, but rather, to listen for guidance from within that may tell me to take that curving road under the autumn trees, rather than the more direct route that could save me some time. That time may be better spent in truly observing, keeping my eyes open for signs, trusting in the rightness of my inner navigation.