What we get up to on writing retreats?

I cannot explain the deliciousness of the gorgeous, healthy food we’re being fed here at Kalikalos here in Greece. We’ve been fortunate to have the well-loved chef, James from Findhorn cooking the most divine food for us. We’re all complaining of putting on too much weight and returning home heavier than when we arrived. Hopefully emptying some of our stories onto the page will help with that. However that doesn’t seem to be stopping us, myself included going up for seconds, even thirds. His cooking is so good.

Staying on the subject of food the business of writing is hard work, both mentally and physically and thinking about how you eat or in my case snack (I had to hastily deposit the snacks in my bedroom that I seemed to be demolishing at a frightening rate downstairs into our workshop space as I was in danger of finishing everything). When you’re in the process of thinking and writing snacking can become a dangerous pursuit. I’m determined tomorrow to eat less and spend more time admiring the delicious dishes that James will no doubt have in store for us.

Our check in yesterday morning using a beautiful white and brown sand coloured talking stone I found on the beach went wide and deep. Our themes included:

The importance of establishing boundaries to protect and make time and space for writing. Different writers in the group identified what they personally needed to get themselves into the writing flow. Some needed to stay in the centre and write for the afternoon, others needed to get off site and spend some time by the beach or wander through the town.

I spent the afternoon wandering on site, something I like to do back home where I kind off let myself just hang out and go with the flow. We are in the most stunning location on Mount Pelion surrounded by grooves of Olive trees and a picture postcard view of the sea framed by the mountain ranges.

With everyone gone in different directions for the afternoon the quietness that descended on the centre felt like a sedative. I felt drunk on the peace and stillness that wrapped itself around the space. In the distance I could hear the comforting humming of the bees from their hives half way down the mountain, which I could barely hear when in the company of others.

I walked a little, sat down a lot, finished reading a book I had brought with me, (The Skeleton Cupboard by psychologist, Tanya Byron) curled up in bed, went on a short walk, took some photo’s, tidied up a bit and ate an apricot, peach and banana (in that order) rather than stuff down another chocolate finger for the day. I have no idea what possessed me to buy a whole load of chocolates from the pound shop and bring with me? I guess I was after some kind of comfort.

And that’s the thing about writing. We often want to write close to home, to stay in our comfort zone and not give ourselves that stretch that brings the writing alive. This is something I’ve been thinking a lot about in my own writing and wondering if for too long I’ve stayed writing what feels comfortable and familiar. This week I purposely invited the writers to stretch when it came to setting themselves a writing challenge. However I’ve realized I’d not really done that with myself so watch this space for tomorrow.

The second theme we touched on was the good old inner critic. We moved into how exploring how we really accept and digest positive feedback about our writing from our peers. One way we’re nurturing this on the retreat is to give feedback after a writer reads aloud, in writing. Already one of the writer’s in the group has expressed how affirming it was to sit and read the feedback afterwards.

The third theme was recognition that writers need support whether it’s people support, practical support, food support, etc and it’s our job to work out what support we need and to organize getting the support in place.

We wrapped up the morning with the Travel Therapy writing exercise. We discussed the importance of making sure the destinations we travel to match the therapeutic needs of our inner journeys. We used maps and letter writing stationary (thanks to Paper Chase) as writing prompts as well as the Travel Therapy prompts from my Paper Therapy workbook.

We finished up with a one-hour writing practice session and then closed the morning with one member of the group sharing their writing and receiving feedback.

Tonight before going to sleep and sorry to rub it in after another delicious meal of spinach parcels, gorgeous, ruby purple beetroot, tarasamalta, a green salad with a dressing to die for, a Cajun style Greek bread and lemon, and rosemary baked, crispy potato chips, I ended the evening sitting on the balcony of my room, meditating under the gaze of a full moon. I lit and burnt charcoal with Frankincense and totally drunk in the full moon sky.

By the time I’d finished I’d so much energy I couldn’t sleep so decided to write this blog post instead.

I love it here. I love teaching on this retreat. I love working and supporting writers in this wholehearted and wholesome way. It’s a joy and creatively enriching pulling together all the exercises and writing activities that act as inspiration and creative stimulus for the writing to emerge. I can’t think of a better way to spend my day doing work I love.

Tomorrow is my favourite part of the retreat when we enter into twenty hours of silence offering writers a much-needed space to deepen into writing without the distractions of verbal human contact. The staff at Kalikalos join in as well and we create a blanket of silence across the retreat centre for twenty-four hours. See you back here tomorrow.