There are many kinds of renewal you seek when you set out on a retreat or a vacation or when you draw a bath at the end of a grindy day.
You might want:
A) Big sigh renewal: a letting go of what is heavy and sticky and burdensome. Most often experienced after yoga nidra, hot tub soaking, reflexology, or a long hike in Snow Canyon.
B) Inner quiet renewal: no more blasted yaking in your ever-loving head. See all the above suggestions and add unplugging from all media (except for texting your beloved several times a day).
C) Playful renewal: “Oh yeah, life isn’t such a big hairy serious deal, thank God!” Best fostered by art mess making, dance, and long days in or near water.
D) Embodied renewal: “There is something below my neck? Wait, look, there is!” Yoga with a beloved teacher, reading poetry (I’m on a Sharon Olds jag), massage, and slow, sensuous love-making are in this category.
E) Love renewal: for yourself, your family, your partner. Try paying meticulous attention to what is good, beautiful, and sweet.
F) Creative renewal: the world is a vast marvel and that marvel feds you. Try painting or writing retreats, city vacations immersed in art and theater and music, or permission to read and watch what you really want.
G) Ego reduction renewal: it isn’t all about you, thank God. Lose yourself in ancient ruins, climb a tall mountain or launch yourself on a very small boat onto a very large sea.
H) Canyon-deep stone-old returning renewal: Found in the belly button of the earth. Good for all of the above as well as having big wild ideas that make your knees week and helping you remember what you love about everything.
Nestled in a rock curve, silence entered me until I was heavy, pinned to the now, nothing in me but a soft roar.
Then I heard “the reason to find the good is to liberate love.”
In other words, it was a very good week off.
This week, when busyness and fear and doubt come calling, as they already have, I’m going back to that canyon-deep, stone-old knowing for the sake of liberating love.
This week, I will be pinned to the now by the soft roar of what I love.
This week, I will be an embodied ego reduced big sigh.
What the hell does that mean? Every time I catch myself kvetching and lamenting, I’ll go back to the rock curve, that hidden Snow Canyon belly button, I’ll drop right in there and breath.
That is the truth. That is who I am.
10 responses so far ↓
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2 Pamela Lynn Apr 5, 2010
I could feel my stress start to melt away as I read this article!
My favorite renewals are the canyon-deep stone-old returning renewal, the big sigh renewal and the creative renewal…so awesome.
Thanks for a great article Jen!
3 Hope Apr 5, 2010
Oh, honey – I’m still working on figuring out who I am!
But, I’m building up to a big leap toward myself. Right now, in my pocket, is a little notebook. In it I’m writing down all the things I feel I should get done before I can block out time to focus on healing myself. I want to have it all out of my head where I can see it.
Eventually, I’ll actively discard all if it but the absolute bare minimum, declare I will be satisfied with that minimum, do it, declare myself satisfied, and commit to self-healing.
I may even have a committment ceremony.
4 Hiro Boga Apr 5, 2010
Oh, the beauty of your Snow Canyon belly button! Thank you for sharing the magic, Jen.
And thank you for reminding us, in so many different ways, to honor this precious moment. To love what is. To “be an embodied ego-reduced big sigh.”
So how will I remember who I am this week? Since who I am is a moving, shifting, ever-evolving collection of selves, I’ll make room for my selves to play. And cradle them in the broad lap of my essence.
I will let beauty soften urgency; wholeness wrap itself around the jagged edges of doubt and fear; vision wipe away the weep of sticky eyed fear.
I will invoke the magic of the threshold to kiss the stubbed toe, the scraped knee, the bruised shin, the timid heart.
Love, Hiro
5 Thekla Richter Apr 5, 2010
I love reading about these different kinds of renewals. I think people often ache for renewal, and finding words to describe what the blessing you seek might look like goes a long ways towards being able to offer it to yourself.
6 Lisa Apr 5, 2010
hmmmm….welcome back from your retreat, jen. of course, that canyon-deep, stone-old knowing is there for you all the time, wherever you are, whenever you need it.
how will i choose to remember me this week? by sitting still and listening well. by moving my body across a dance floor and moving my pen across paper. by surrounding myself with like-spirited women this weekend and allowing spirit to be the guiding force that helps me connect all of us together.
i’ll be a big sigh with you.
7 Courtney Apr 6, 2010
Really lovely! I want to bookmark this page and come back to it often. Thank you for these beautiful reminders to stay in the moment.
8 Suzyn Apr 6, 2010
I had a similar experience in a very different place – under the Rose window of Notre Dame in Paris. There it became very very clear to me that I didn’t need to get a master’s degree – I needed to make art. That was six years ago this month. I still need that reminder.
9 Diedra Apr 6, 2010
Just beautiful Jen! Thank you for reminding me how to find the center as I try and reach a new normal for life.
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