West of the Moon Creative Retreat

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The Hidden Paths

February 27, 2015 By Terry Price 1 Comment

images“Still round the corner there may wait

A new road or a secret gate

And though I oft have passed them by

A day will come at last when I

Shall take the hidden paths that run

West of the Moon, East of the Sun.”

J.R.R. Tolkien, part of Frodo’s walking song from Lord of the Rings

 

A few years after Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee return to the shire, Frodo makes up new words to an old song and sings it softly during a walk as he prepares for a new journey. Aside from the beautiful lyricism of the poetry and rhythm, it is the words that bring magic to this walking song.

This is a song of adventure and of faith. I use the term “faith” here in a spiritual sense rather than a religious. In this case, it is a return from a grand adventure of a lifetime that fosters Frodo’s faith and it is his faith that compels him to seek another adventure. Faith is a belief in the intangible, in things unseen but sometimes, things sensed or felt. It is a belief in something better, a working form of optimism.

What is adventure?

It’s not what happens to you. Rather, adventure is how you perceive the events of your life. For some, driving cross-country is a routine job to do as quickly and efficiently as possible. For others, a trip to the local grocer holds promise of the unknown. You define adventure. You determine whether you live a life filled with it. You.

A sense of adventure says there could be a new road or a secret gate around the next corner, a corner that you’ve come around most every day of your life. But this time…this time, maybe it’s different. And how does one believe in a hidden path, let alone find and take it?

This is the adventure of a creative soul. This is the life of the artist. We wake up believing. In what?

In everything. The creative believes in possibilities. The artists go to the medium with the faith that an adventure will take place, that on this page, one that looks just like all the rest, a new road might be found, a secret gate might be revealed. It is a faith that leads to the adventure.

The artist lives a life of faith and adventure because she knows anything less is not living. The artist develops and nurtures a creative practice to which she returns again and again, finding things that heretofore did not exist. Faith is knowing that one day she will take the hidden paths which shall be revealed only as the first step is taken and not before. Anything less and magic is removed from the adventure, faith is rendered unnecessary.

It is the same with a creative life.

It is the difference between waking up excited at possibilities and waking up dreading the routine.

This past week, we had a great deal of snow for the Nashville area. Crossing a parking lot I saw two pennies on a bare spot of concrete and picked one up, leaving the other. “Good luck!” I said to my friend as I held it up before pocketing it. “I’m not bending down for a penny and take a chance on messing up my back,” he replied. “You don’t believe that stuff, do you?”

It made me think. No, I don’t believe that the serendipitous discovery of a copper coin will affect my fate. But I’m glad that I keep looking for those things not because they bring me luck, rather they remind me to be present, to remember the good things I am blessed with. They are keys to a secret gate, not the gate itself. One/one-hundreth of a dollar will not get you anything anymore. But an object can become a talisman in the hands of an alchemist. It becomes a symbol of the magic constantly surrounding us so, in a way, it can actually bring us luck.

I left the other penny hoping another traveller finds it on another adventure. As for me, it’s time for another walk. I feel a song a comin’ on.

Filed Under: creative living, Creative Writing, Creativity, New Harmony, Obstacles, personal myth, personal story, Uncategorized, Writers, Writing, Writing Retreat Tagged With: art, creativity, expression, feelings, flow, follow your bliss, happiness, Joseph Campbell, Mediation, our essence, painting, photography, who we are, writing, your passion, your true self

A World of Gentle Possibility

December 29, 2014 By Dave Leave a Comment

A young boy dreams big dreams of what lies beyond by desertdutchman

“A young boy dreams big dreams of what lies beyond” by desertdutchman

Ideally, we want WEST OF THE MOON to be Your Path to a Creative Life. We want to help you live in your own world of possibility.

We want you help you Imagine, Discover, Create.

Not just a particular project you’re called to work on, but the life you’re called to live. We want you to find your own secret gate, to follow your own hidden paths, to live the life that is true to you. That is our intention.

Creative and all around kind heart, Erin Julian, recently posted the following quote on her Facebook page and it seemed very apt because, ultimately, we want you to “come into rhythm” with yourself.

In the Western tradition, we were taught many things about the nature of negativity and the nature of sin, but we were never told that one of the greatest sins is the unlived life.

It is a lonely experience to be at the deathbed of someone who is full of regret; to hear him say how he would love another year to do the things his heart had always dreamed of but believed he could never do until he retired. He had always postponed the dream of his heart.

We are so privileged to still have time. We have but one life, and it is a shame to limit it by fear and false barriers. The divine has such passionate creativity and instinct for the fully inhabited life. If you allow yourself to be the person that you are, then everything will come into rhythm.

The shape of each soul is different. There is a secret destiny for each person. When you endeavor to repeat what others have done or force yourself into a preset mold, you betray your individuality.

We need to return to the solitude within, to find again the dream that lies at the hearth of the soul. We need to feel the dream with the wonder of a child approaching a threshold of discovery. When we rediscover our childlike nature, we enter into a world of gentle possibility. The false burdens fall away. We come into rhythm with ourselves.” – John O’Donohue

One of the most rewarding aspects of WOTM for us is creating an environment that allows creatives “to return to the solitude within, to find again the dream that lies at the hearth of the soul.”

Tranquil Fountain & Labyrinth

Tranquil Fountain & Labyrinth

New Harmony is an ideal setting for such solitude. Yet, we also encourage you to spend some time with others rekindling or building on your respective dreams “with the wonder of a child approaching a threshold of discovery.”

It’s the combination of community – the creative energy you share and the sparks you create in each other – as well as the tranquility and equanimity of the place itself that make West of the Moon so special for me and Terry.

Hopefully, that is what makes the experience special for you, and allows you to recognize that part of yourself that you may overlook from time to time, and, in doing so, allows you to “be the person that you are,” so that “everything will come into rhythm.”

As the year comes to a close, consider this time one of transition. One of beginning. One where you “enter into a world of gentle possibility.”


“A young boy dreams big dreams of what lies beyond” photo by desertdutchman courtesy of Creative Commons.

Filed Under: creative living, Creativity, Flow, New Harmony, Obstacles, Retreat, Uncategorized, Writers, Writing Retreat Tagged With: art, create, creativity, discover, dream, flow, follow your bliss, imagine, obstacles, our essence, possibility, solitude, who we are, wonder, your passion, your true self

Let Me Live Again

November 6, 2014 By Terry Price Leave a Comment

“Creativity is more than just being different. Anybody can plan weird; that’s easy. What’s hard is to be as simple as Bach. Making the simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity” – Charles Mingus

Creativity is who we are.

The fascinating thing is that it takes a lifetime to believe that.

We are creators.

But it takes the courage, the patience, the living experience to understand it…to believe it.

We live lives desperately trying to fit in when it is the essence of life to discover, to understand our uniqueness. What is it that makes us who we are?

I remember learning in grade school that every snowflake was unique. It was different from any snowflake that had ever existed. I had trouble believing that because when I looked out into the back yard (back when it really snowed in Nashville) all I saw was a big pile of snow. All white. All cold. All solid.

But I learned that each molecule was different, even as it combined to make the whole.

And so it is with us.

I am a creator. But I am a different creator from you, my friend. You are a creator too. But you are different. But not just different. You are different in such a simple way. I think that what Mingus was trying to say is that you are different from the essence of who you are. That’s the simplicity. That’s Dorothy learning that she knew all long how to get home. That’s how George Bailey learned how he had all of the adventure and paradise he longed for right within the walls of his home and his family.

Maybe we are called to be explorers of new lands or new ideas. Maybe we are called to be explorers of our own backyards. Neither is more important than the other. Both are unique.

One of the wonderful secrets to life is finding the magic where we are. Find the magic where we are called to be. It might be on the moon or in a castle in Tuscany. But it’s just as likely to be in a small frame house in Tennessee. You see, location isn’t important. The willingness to believe, the willingness to see the magic in the everyday, the “ordinary,” is what makes it awesome. It’s what makes life and living amazing. It’s what makes us unique and special. And we are. You are. You are as simple and as complex and magnificent as Bach or any of his symphonies. Or as Charles Mingus, who was brilliant enough to “get it.”

Filed Under: Creative Writing, Creativity, Flow, myth, mythology, New Harmony, Obstacles, personal myth, personal story, Retreat, Writers, Writing, Writing Retreat Tagged With: body, Charles Mingus, conscious, emotions, expression, feelings, follow your bliss, getting in yor own way, happiness, obstacles, our essence, painting, photography, Time, unconscious, Walking meditation, who we are, writing, your passion, your true self

What If?

April 19, 2014 By Terry Price Leave a Comment

Cabo sunset 001“It always amuses me that the biggest praise for my work comes for the imagination, while the truth is that there’s not a single line in all my work that does not have a basis in reality. The problem is that Caribbean reality resembles the wildest imagination.” ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Whenever I work with writers, especially those who feel as if they’ve hit a dead end in their work, I encourage them to play the game of “what if.”

“What if” is exactly what it sounds like. And it is unrestricted. The focus of the game is to be playful and to get out of your left brain, rational, logical thinking, at least for the moment. It’s designed to return to that playful mode we experienced as children; when we made up stories and never, ever had “writer’s block.” Nothing was impossible.

What about life?

Sometimes we work so hard to live our own life story, we reach dead ends and don’t know where to turn. We reach a “life block.” We work so hard to do rational, logical, “grown-up” things and yet we move through life as if we’re not getting anywhere. People look around and ask, “is this all there is?”

The answer lies in your imagination.

If you only believe that the world of your senses, the world of your intellect, is all there is…you will be right. But, conversely, if you believe there is more, much more, maybe even life greater than your imagination, you will be right, too.

We live our lives and tell our stories, one often a metaphor for the other. Ultimately, when we write, we decide what possibilities exist for our characters. Ultimately, as we live, we decide what possibilities await for us. We build our own prisons and hold the keys to our release, but only some have the imagination to unlock the doors and venture outside. It is our logic that tells us the safety of the prison is better than the danger of the dragons that await outside.

But is the imagination that whispers “what if…”

What if you were made for slaying dragons?

What if the dragons aren’t what you thought?

What if dragons were actually quite tasty, served with an apple cranberry chutney and a decanted 1999 Brunello?

What if there are no dragons?

There are times in our life when logic and reason are necessary. But there is a season and a time for every things…times when we must escape the structured, limited, confining boundaries of our intelligence. Great works of art are not fashioned from the mind, they are created through the passion of the heart, the soul, and the imagination, all of which have some basis in reality. Life is ultimately not about what you know. It’s about what you don’t know, about what you are willing to learn, about what you are willing to dream…about what you’re willing to be.

Therein lies the fertile playground of the “what-ifs.”

And today is a perfect day to go out and play.

Filed Under: Creative Writing, Creativity, New Harmony, personal story, Retreat, Writers, Writing, Writing Retreat, Yoga Tagged With: art, conscious, creativity, distractions, expression, feelings, flow, follow your bliss, getting in yor own way, happiness, Joseph Campbell, Mediation, obstacles, our essence, painting, photography, Time, unconscious, who we are, writing, your passion, your true self

The Gift of Time and Space

April 4, 2014 By Dave Leave a Comment

Great Places to Write

Great Places to Write

There are two essential ingredients to creativity that cannot really be shared in a workshop, cannot be learned in a classroom or from a book, cannot be handed down from mentor to apprentice: the gift of TIME and SPACE.

Time is something we swim in every moment of our lives, yet it is the one thing above all that we never truly seem to have enough of, not for everyday tasks or extraordinary adventures, not for practical pursuits or chasing dreams. Not even for doing nothing at all.

One thing we learn as we spend it, though, is that not all time is created equal. For creatives, uninterrupted time is precious.

Learning to manage time, to shape it in such a way that we have a reasonable “chunk” to devote to our craft is something we can learn. But, ultimately, it is up to us to navigate our days and to determine how and when we can focus on creating. The reality is, some days that time might need to change. Being flexible is important.

But even more important is the act of giving ourselves permission to devote TIME to our calling!

Inside Roofless Church

Inside Roofless Church

Robert Coles writes, “We all need empty hours in our lives or we will have no time to create or dream.” Don’t mistake the word empty to mean worthless or wasted. It simply means time where we don’t have to think about a dozen things at once. Time where we don’t have to think at all.

Because it is in the silence, in the quiet of that empty time, when the magic happens.

In his book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, creativity expert Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi writes that “It might be true that it is ‘quality time’ that counts, but after a certain point quantity has a bearing on quality.” One of the best aspects of New Harmony is the slow down, get unplugged, pull back from the everyday routine of it all.

As Csikszentmihalyi states, it’s not just the quality of uninterrupted time, but the quantity.

According to Csikszentmihalyi, flow occurs when we are fully immersed in what we’re doing. As writers, it’s that time when we slip from the conscious self directing our thoughts to the unconscious revealing the story, the verse, the words.

Although we might be able to learn ways (or techniques) to help get into a creative flow, to engage our muse, it won’t matter if we don’t have the time to actually become fully immersed. Interruptions, which are part of daily life, can keep us from getting into that single-minded focus and flow.

That’s why it’s important to designate a set amount of time for your creativity and to let others know that time is sacred.

Like I said, some of the techniques for taking advantage of uninterrupted time can be learned, sure, but it still comes down to us shaping our day so we have that time. While you’re in New Harmony, determining what time you’ll spend on your art becomes an easier choice. In part because you’ve allowed yourself to step aside from most of your daily responsibilities. But there’s also something about the creative energy of the place, whether you are here for a guided retreat or merely on your own, that lends itself to becoming fully immersed in creating.

How Does It Feel to Be in Flow (from one of Csikszentmihalyi’s Ted Talk slides)?

  • Completely involved in what we are doing – focused, concentrated.
  • A sense of ecstasy – of being outside everyday reality.
  • Great inner clarity – knowing what needs to be done, and how well we are doing.
  • Knowing that the activity is doable – that skills are adequate to the task.
  • A sense of serenity – no worries about oneself, and a feeling of growing beyond the boundaries of the ego.
  • Timelessness – thoroughly focused on the present . . .
  • Intrinsic motivation – whatever produces flow becomes its own reward.

Most people who have spent time creating (whether it’s at the page writing, at the easel painting, at the piano playing) and who have slipped into FLOW understand how amazing it is. That’s the state we’re constantly seeking to get back to and the only way to do that is with some of that empty time to which Cole alludes.

As Robert Henri puts it – “The object isn’t to make art, it’s to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable.”

But in order to make the most of that time, we also need space.

We need a spot where we can immerse ourselves for however much time we have, uninterrupted. I read an article recently that stated, our creative lives aren’t like DVD’s that can be paused every time there’s an interruption and then just started again seamlessly returning to the flow.

Fountain by Sandy Spencer Coomer

Fountain by Sandy Spencer Coomer

Think of FLOW as a literal thing, as a stream, that is fluid and moving, and each interruption is like a damn, like a fallen tree blocking the way. Yes, water is usually able to find a way around, eventually, but that often takes time.

And the direction the stream was flowing in often gets diverted, at least temporarily.

I live in a town where Mark Twain spent much of his adult life living and writing about Huck and Tom and Becky, and he had a special octagonal study built that stood away from his home, complete with fireplace and lighting and other comforts. He’s not alone when it comes to writers who have created their own separate writing space.

For a writer, being at the page is a sacred space. But so too is the actual tangible place where he or she writes. And the value of such a space shouldn’t be taken lightly. As Joseph Campbell put it, “Your sacred space is where you can find yourself again.”

Tranquility of the Labyrinth Fountain

Tranquility of the Labyrinth Fountain

Finding or creating such a space in our daily lives is important.

Now, some writers find that space on the train commuting to and from work. They’re able to tune out the world and tune into themselves. Others have offices or nooks or, like Twain, separate studies devoted to their writing.

Places like New Harmony offer a variety of wonderful nooks and hideaways, parks and benches and other outdoor spots, nestled right in among the natural world with the soothing music of fountains and birdsong.

But there’s also a desk in your room. Where no one will find you. Where no one will ask you to do this or to do that. It’s a sacred space where you can fully immerse yourself for large chunks of time. You will find that New Harmony is a place of quiet, of calm, of serenity. And that is conducive for writing, for drawing, for creating.

“You need not leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. You need not even listen, simply wait, just learn to become quiet, and still, and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked. It has no choice; it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.” – Kafka

Here are a few articles on the value of solitude for creatives:

  • The No. 1 Habit of Highly Creative People
  • The Value of Solitude
  • The Call of Solitude
  • Introvert Quotes on Creativity
  • What Great Artists Need: Solitude

Part of the benefit of taking a retreat is the gift of time and space. But it’s important to also find ways to create your own mini-retreats each time you want to create. In order to do that, you need TIME and SPACE.

Filed Under: Creative Writing, Creativity, Flow, New Harmony, Obstacles, Retreat, Uncategorized, Writers, Writing Tagged With: art, clarity, creativity, fous, Joseph Campbell, Kafka, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, retreat, Robert Coles, Robert Henri, sacred space, serenity, Space, Time, tranquility

Living a Labyrinth

March 27, 2014 By Terry Price Leave a Comment

labyrinthsbcToday I did a walking meditation on the seven circuit labyrinth at the Scarritt-Bennett Center in Nashville. It’s been too long since I’ve walked a labyrinth and I’ve known that for awhile but, to be candid, neither the weather nor my personal circumstances have been ideal this winter for walking a labyrinth. Upon approaching the entrance ‘neath the warm Tennessee sun, I felt as if I were entering the doorway of an old friend with whom I had lost touch.

I use labyrinths for different purposes. For the uninitiated, a labyrinth is a circular pathway, with no predictable route, that leads to its center. It differs from a maze in that there are no decisions for the traveler to make and no dead ends. It is the absence of duality, of right and wrong. Once you understand this, you are able to lose yourself in the walk to the extent you are able to trust the pathway. When I say “lose yourself” I’m speaking to the conscious, logical, left-brained you. One foot in front of the other, again, and again, you find your pace, your rhythm which can very easily be different every time you walk a labyrinth. You feel your breath, you feel connected to the ground and disconnected from all that pulls you from your life. Or at least that’s how it works for me.

Anyway, I use the labyrinth for a creative tool to help me with inspirations for my writings. I use labyrinths to help me think through issues whether spiritual, emotional or physical. Or all three. The walking aspect of the labyrinth makes it easier for me to meditate than sitting does. If the weather is decent, I will remove my shoes and socks so I can feel the grass and dirt or the stones, depending upon the surface of the labyrinth.

So today I walked. And I pondered.

I pondered life and death. Relationships. I walked and ruminated about my novel and what I am to learn, not only by writing it but through the process of writing it. I meditated on the retreat Dave and I are leading in June and asked for inspirations and ideas that would excite others about living a creative life.

And while I was walking I suddenly had an epiphany. It became clear the walking of the labyrinth was very much like the living of my life when I am in the midst of doing that which I am supposed to be doing. When I am following my bliss. During those times, it is as if I am living a life path where all along, just waiting for me to enter and trust. Decisions and stress are minimized. I am able to let go and move along until I reach the center which, in this case, is my center.

As I reached the center of the Scarritt-Bennett labyrinth, I clearly saw the path I had just traveled and how, in spite of its meandering appearance, it led me, perfectly, to where I was, where I was supposed to be. It made me think of the essay by Arthur Schopenhauer, “On an Apparent Intention in the Fate of the Individual,” in which he talks about reaching a point when you look back over your life and find a consistent order and plan that transcends randomness, a life that appears to have been composed by a novelist. 

I’m not saying that it’s easy as you live it. I’m not even saying that it makes sense at times. I am saying that, for me, trusting there things bigger than me, that are wiser than me, things grander and more magical than my imagination, has brought me to this point. And it is this realization that fuels my passion for my creativity and my art. For it is through my art that I ask the big questions, dream the big dreams, believe the unimaginable. And I do it one step at a time. One breath at a time. I keep following my path. The one that has been there before I was a whisper in a womb, waiting just for me.

Filed Under: Creative Writing, Creativity, Flow, Hero, Labyrinth, Meditation, myth, mythology, New Harmony, Retreat, ritual, Uncategorized, Walking Meditation, Writers Tagged With: art, creativity, expression, feelings, flow, follow your bliss, happiness, Joseph Campbell, Labyrinth, Mediation, movement, our essence, painting, Scarritt-Bennett, Walking meditation, who we are, writing, your passion, your true self

Mystery and Art

March 14, 2014 By Terry Price Leave a Comment

Butterfly  1252“I never know when I sit down, just what I am going to write. I make no plan; it just comes, and I don’t know where it comes from.” ~ D. H. Lawrence

[There is] “the edge between what is known and what is never to be discovered because it is a mystery transcendent of all human research.” ~ Joseph Campbell

More often than not, when we seek answers we immediately grab our smartphones and Google or use other search engines to find the concrete, to learn the facts. Our science is advancing so rapidly that new facts replace old in the matter of days instead of centuries. Our access to information is unlike anything dreamed of fifty years ago as we read our newspapers, listened to radios, and watched televisions.

There is a story, however apocryphal, that in the 1950’s, then President Eisenhower was led into a room with was completely filled with an enormous computer. The engineers challenged the President to ask a question to the computer. The President thought, then asked the engineers to program in the question, “is there a God?”

The computer whirred and hummed for about ten minutes, which was considered to be quite fast in the day. Then lights flashed and a buzzer sounded and a card spat out…”there is NOW!”

Although I laughed at the story, to some degree, information has become a god. To some degree, technology and science have become gods. We live in a time when we believe everything can become known…will become known.

Don’t misunderstand. I love to study and learn. I want to know more. But adding to my accumulation of information does not lessen my wonderment or belief in magic, in mystery. Neither science nor technology can explain love. No amount of research can explain why people will sacrifice themselves for others whom they do not know. There are things so beyond our understanding that we cannot even begin to describe, what Campbell calls the “what is never to be discovered.” In essence…the mystery.

And just because we cannot see, because we cannot describe or articulate something beyond our conscious ability, some would argue this as the evidence that it does not exist. But artists know better.

That is why the artist is just as important as the scientist or the engineer to our cultures and civilization. Because no matter how much we learn, how much we can know, even if one day, everything in the sensory world is explained, there shall always be the ineffable. There shall always be the mystery.

This is what the poet understands and conveys through imagery and metaphor. This is what the painter knows and illustrates through strokes and colors. This what the storyteller learns through the telling of her story which when revealed from the depths, the land of dreams and visions, resonates from soul to soul, revealing a collective consciousness, always there but never experienced.

Art is a tangible through which the heart feels and knows and experiences the mystery. It is all we have and yet it is more than enough. We do not need mystery to be explained or understood. We just need to experience transcendence. We need it as much as we need air and water and food. For without transcendence, there are no breaths, there is no refreshment, there is no nourishment. Without transcendence, there is no ecstasy, no amazement, no wonder, no mystery. No awe.

Celebrate that within you that keeps your eyes open, your heart vulnerable, your imagination free and wild, your belief in magic and mystery active and alive, and that keeps your inner child at play. That is your artist within. That is who you truly are. And that is why you were created.

To create.

Filed Under: Creative Writing, Creativity, Flow, myth, mythology, New Harmony, personal story, Retreat, Uncategorized, Writers, Writing, Writing Retreat Tagged With: art, creativity, expression, flow, follow your bliss, happiness, Joseph Campbell, movement, our essence, painting, photography, who we are, writing, your passion, your true self

It Really Is About Creative Living

February 12, 2014 By Terry Price 2 Comments

Creativity is at the root of everything we do.

Our Western culture tends to compartmentalize art and creativity and, in doing so, minimizes their value. But life itself is created and nurtured through childhood. Creativity and art, imagination and exploration, are encouraged during these years.

LabyrinthBut then we’re taught that we must get serious, be serious about life. And most of us leave our art and creativity behind. As Wordsworth writes, the “Shades of the prison-house begin to close upon the growing boy” and we follow what our culture tells us is right, what we must do, how we must “grow up.”

Writing, painting, photography, sculpting, weaving, and all of the many other forms of artistic expression are ways we learn who we are, are ways we process these lives we lead. They are expressions of our essence, our very souls. Joan Dideon said “I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means.” 

Art is about expressing the inexpressible. Art is about metaphor through which we sense and feel that which we cannot express with words. Art is beyond language, beyond borders, genders, religions, beyond anything that separates us. Art is that which resonates so deeply we begin to understand that on that level, we are all truly one.

And so we find ways we can come together with others of like mind, to get away in an idyllic setting, away from the routine, the requirements, the numbing repetition of existence, to find and reclaim our art and, therefore, ultimately our lives. And once reclaimed, we can return home, knowing that the magic was never in that location but rather, is within each of us. It is us and is wherever we are, whatever we do, and is part of that essence that this world has never seen before and will never see again. And ultimately we realize that by retreating we are never “getting away from” but rather, if we are lucky, we live a life in which we are always following our own sacred path toward who we are meant to be.

Filed Under: Creative Writing, Hero, New Harmony, Retreat, Uncategorized, Writers, Writing, Writing Retreat Tagged With: art, creativity, expression, Joan Dideon, our essence, painting, photography, who we are, Wordsworth, writing

West of the Moon Blog

"Listen With Heart" by Len Matthews

Listen With Your Heart

March 20, 2015 By Dave Leave a Comment

“The things which hurt, instruct.” - Benjamin Franklin As a boy, my one true love . . . was basketball. That’s right. Like Juliet to Romeo, basketball was the sun, only . . . okay, well, that may be stretching it a bit. But the idea of playing, the … [Read More...]

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