A few months ago one of my writer’s coven friends asked our group if we’d want to go on a retreat together in the fall to kick off her birthday month. She says she threw it out there as a joke, assuming we’d say no or we’d be too busy to actually nail something down, but the opposite happened. We jumped at the chance!
We’ve been meeting for over two years now. Almost every Tuesday night we gather around a table, sharing food, stories, our hearts, and our friendship. There are nights we all pull out our laptops and read something we’ve been working on and other nights where they sit in our bags, forgotten in favor of human connection, shared fears and worries taking precedence. We’ve become incredibly close in that time and booking a cabin in the mountains for a long weekend of uninterrupted connection sounded perfect to us all.
And so, we began planning. A menu came forth, planning for all the meals and snacks we’d need. Suggestions of what to do bubbled away, simmering in our group chat excitedly. And before we knew it, it was time to go! I packed my car–FAR too full for a long weekend, picked up two of my coven members along the way, and we headed up the mountain.
The first night it was just four of us, our fifth had work to do and would meet us early in the morning. We settled in, choosing our rooms and getting comfortable with the space. We had dinner and then stayed up til midnight like giggling girls at a sleepover. We read tarot cards by candlelight (and then by headlamp because we aren’t girls and cant see as well in the dark and we refused to turn on the big lights), bared our souls after some pretty heavy and spot-on card pulls, and went to bed sleepy but exhilarated.
The next morning we woke up early and headed to the little town nearby to meet Suzanne. We met at a local indie book store and wandered around there and a witchy shop above them before heading back to the cabin to settle in for the weekend. That was the only time we left. We holed up there and made magic all weekend. We (mostly) put our phones away and left the world behind. It was so needed by all of us.
The first full day Dian made a full spread of Indonesian food for lunch–grilled meats, stewed jackfruit, the most amazing salad with peanut sauce, and black rice. It was amazing and we all loved it! It was cool enough to eat outside and we took full advantage of the deck every chance we got! We spent the day talking and chatting, taking naps or taking walks, and writing for a bit. In the afternoon we played a fun game where we had to write believable first lines of famous books, had a mezze plate for dinner, started a fire and roasted marshmallows, read more tarot cards, and then went down to the game room to play darts and giggle some more.
Saturday there was rain in the forecast so we’d planned accordingly and had some indoor things to do just in case. But we began our day out on that wonderful deck with breakfast and then some watercolor art and/or writing or work before the sky turned and we headed indoors. After lunch we crafted moon wreaths with witches bells, hag stones I collected this summer, and dried flowers.
After crafting hour, two people went to nap and I changed into my yoga clothes, rolled out my mat, and steadied myself to teach for the first time in a decade. In the planning of our trip, someone asked if I’d be willing to teach yoga. Though it was another lifetime ago, I was, once upon a time, a yoga teacher. I acquiesced, with the express request that they give me a lot of grace as I fumbled my way through.
With a little shakiness and a lot of nerves, I did it. Just a quick, twenty minute flow, but I said the words and stood on my mat in front of other people and guided them through. It was weird. And wonderful. And scary. And like coming home (but if home had been closed up for a while and didn’t quite feel or smell like home, but it was still familiar…if that makes sense).
After yoga we gathered together and did some writing exercises. We were, after all, on a writer’s retreat. We brought out the tarot cards, pulled one, and had fifteen minutes to write a story using the imagery.
We went around the table and shared and it was so interesting to read how different everyone’s story around the same thing was! At some point the weather rolled in and we were in the middle of a cloud. It made for the perfect vibes to be tucked up in a warm cabin writing.
The next exercise was similar–the Lie-brary game we played had a dice that had different genres on it, so we rolled the dice, landed on Romance (which none of us write!), and drew two cards–one from the Cottage Tarot deck and one from the Wheel of the Year tarot deck–and had to write a romance to connect them.
It was hilarious and amazing and we had everything from a hallmark Christmas movie-style romance to spicy romance. Again, so interesting to see how everyone interpreted the same prompt!
After our writing exercise we had dinner and spent another late night laughing, sharing, and not wanting to pack up and leave the next day. We spent the morning eating breakfast and drinking tea and coffee and talking about what a wonderful trip it had been. All of us had noticed how present we’d been. We’d not mindlessly scrolled on our phones or even turned the television on. We’d just…been. Though we were tired from late nights we all felt refreshed and at peace. How wonderful to dread leaving a place because your experience was so good.
We were missing three of our people. Schedules and circumstances kept them from the cabin this weekend and they were dearly missed. But we realized while we were there that this was something we all needed and we didn’t want to wait an entire year to do it again. So we’re planning a spring time retreat and another autumn retreat for next year and I hope they’ll all be able to be there and experience the peace and presence that we were able to.
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