Day Five, Closing Farewells

Our quiet morning yoga ritual grounded us into our final retreat day. I felt a new lingering sadness to see our participants trickle away one by one. But its a good reminder for me that all things change . . . to release and move into the new upcoming adventures.

Once back at the Ponderosa cabin, we brewed and chewed our breakfasts, then, prepared for our few final exercises. One of my favorite closings sounds a bit hokey, but even Jean changed her viewpoint once we did these sweet, positive sharings which everyone was able to take home. Not only a memento but also a reminder of all the amazing traits others see in us that we often overlook or forget. We are such clear mirrors for one another :)

Then, we each presented our retreats work, commenting upon successes and some judgment too, of course (aren't we our worst critiques?) We were all impressed with the quantity and quality accomplished. Now we know some of these wouldn't be in museums but the growth and experimentation that went on was astonishing. Many of the writing/meditation/internal processes that we experienced weren't even visible on paper. How do you measure stretching your envelope? or combining a spiritual slant to getting lines on paper? or responding in color only to what you felt rather than just what you saw? I remember asking once in my journal writings, "how do you paint the breeze?" and again, that is what these journal reviews were echoing in my heart.

We closed the Retreat formally at noon, leaving a big-wide-wonderful afternoon for all of us four to go out and do as we wished. At our leisure we all packed up our painting/journal gear and head out into this gorgeous day.

We'd all ended up going to the east end of the lake with all its variety of granite rocks, sculpture-like trees, all backgrounded with azure blue lake. It was a painfully beautiful day. Some of the aching was from knowing we'd all be leaving soon. But we had lovely results from the day . . . here's a few samples.

Another of our cluster flew away that afternoon. We all helped carry out her bags and assisted in positioning things in the car. I was almost glad when she couldn't find her keys (oh grief, we had to unpack a bunch of things to find the key ring under one of the boxes!!) . . . her time with us lingered just a bit more. But eventually she drove off, headed to her home destination in the late afternoon sun.

For dinner, we chose to wander down the hill to the Lodge Restaurant. After days of substantial evening meals, we split plates or ordered a smaller version of the usual meals. The sun set slowly as we were sitting on the restaurant patio and we returned to working in our journals with occasional chirps from each of the three remaining from the original five.