Today is the last day of a week-long contemplative writing retreat I've been leading on Washington Island in Door County, Wisconsin. This is the second year we have done this retreat - other than some weekend retreats and occasional four day retreats, this is our main retreat of the year.
It's a trek from Madison - five hours, with a ferry in there. The drive is northeast, far enough north that the sun sets notably later and rises notably earlier in the summer. That final journey, the stretch on the ferry over to the island, is a commitment. One woman didn't attend this year because it's at least three hours, including an emergency ferry ride, to the closest Emergency Room.
The island, in other words, is rural and secluded, surrounded on one side by the Bay of Green Bay and on the other by Lake Michigan.
We go deep. People come to write fiction, non-fiction; about their lives or nothing to do with their lives. But we all come to write - to meditate, to move, to write. And to share. The sharing helps us go deeper, allows us to open gates inside ourselves to others and to ourselves. Listening, giving feedback, holding space.
After diving so deep, it can be hard to return.
