touch drawing by deborah koff-chapin

I have just returned from my annual writing retreat with sister-leaders in Women Writing for (a) Change. United in our commitment to living a more conscious life in our lives and work, we function as a community of practice across the miles year-round. But four days each June, we meet in person to renew – ourselves as writers, our connections as wise leaders, our commitment to our work in the world. Looking back at a section of my first and last writings for the weekend, I trace those same three themes:

TODAY I BRING
less of anything and more of everything
than ever before –wanting more
time to write, to complete

what started with such promise
and keeps morphing
into more, then less

I arrive here emptied, prompted only
by desire to attend and attune
to what will fall, to fill

By Sunday, my words had become:

MORNING GRATITUDES
invisible ties made tangible
in soul-filled cards,
in warm woven words;
in hearts carrying one another
across years, our lives entwined
like lovers’ limbs coming together
and moving apart, all ways a part
of one another

how we have twined this past decade –
loves, daughters, adventure, loss
and yes, deepening – our threaded lives
foundational to the who and how
of each of us

let us speak gratitude beyond words
for this mending time, this weaving time,
this moving time in which we launch
ourselves once more into work we love
and will not leave