It’s 11:02 pm and I’m on the final leg of the loooonnngggg trip home from the Writer’s Spa. Car, plane, plane, taxi, ferry…

Always such a bittersweet moment, the end of a retreat.
I’m happy to go home, eager to see my daughter and husband and dog and dad and mom and art supplies and bamboo sheets and to take a hot shower
            and
                so sad to leave the circle of the women’s glow, their polished courage, their intensified creative fevers.

Mainly, though, I’m in that very mischievous Monty Pythonesque mood crossed with wouldn’t it be fun to pick a fight with Chris or drink expensive white wine or gossip on the phone with my friend Kris? 

The very wise Jungian author Robert Johnson talks about the need to balance the light with the dark, and how he learned that whenever he had been very successful at something or praised in a way that inflated his ego, he would be sure to come home and clean toilets or turn the stinky compost pile or otherwise attend to duties that were very humbling.

The idea is not to step on or soil the delight and triumph but rather to balance the psyche so it remembers it is human and not divine.

So tomorrow I will weed and spend time with Dad and Mom and do laundry and life will sweetly humble me… without asking that I let go of my part in this glorious week.