008 A Retreat / What Makes a Home
Hello friends,
It’s great to be back after a brief pause. My partner Alyssa and I return home today from a trip to the northeast, our first since relocating to Los Angeles in December.
I grew up in Massachusetts, went to college in Vermont, and spent most of my twenties in Boston and New York. And for almost a decade, I was a homesteader in rural Maine and Vermont, spending most of my time outside.
This trip has reminded me how deep my connection is to this region. As I walked through forests and pastures, listened to the birds and insects, or put my hand in a stream, I felt dormant parts of me spring to life.
During my homesteading journey, my relationship with the outdoors was often pragmatic. I had tasks to accomplish, skills to learn, and weather to anticipate. This time, my role was different. Over the three weeks I was – to name a few – a retreat facilitator, a house guest, and an uncle at my nephew’s baseball game.
And because I wasn’t trying to achieve anything in the outdoors, I found it easier to receive its more subtle offerings: Fleeting scents, shifts in the light as clouds passed, the sound of mist changing to drizzle changing to rain.
As I prepare to head back west, I do so with a complex understanding: Los Angeles is where I live. I’m building my life there because it’s the perfect place for this moment. At the same time, the northeast feels like home, a place I know in every cell of my body. And yet, perhaps most strangely of all, neither one has a claim on my future.
That’s because what’s familiar is not always what’s right for the present, and what’s right in this moment may not be right in the future.
I used to go crazy thinking about these things – where to live, what job to do, etc – and it rarely had any real benefit. Mostly, I did it to push away my fear of the unknown.
This time, I’m sticking to a strategy that actually works for me: letting life take care of itself. Instead of being guided by wants, fears, familiarity, and a desire for certainty, I’m letting myself be guided by opportunities, synchronicities, and the feelings in my gut.
Instead of trying to control life, I’m letting life – with all its subtle offerings – guide me.
The Retreat
I’d like to take a few moments and recount a major highlight from the trip.
For the past few months, my partner Alyssa has been hard at work creating her newest offering, Homecoming. It’s a four day in-person retreat and six week at-home course designed to help people connect to the natural world and, in turn, themselves.
Homecoming is based on the understanding that, because we’re nature, we need to connect with nature in order to know ourselves.
That includes discovering the peace and ease that comes from being outdoors but also, because nature is beyond our control, learning to work with the darker, more wounded parts of ourselves that emerge when we’re uncomfortable.
It has been a pleasure to witness Alyssa’s process and hard work, from the birth of the idea, the development of its content, to the often grueling process of spreading the word through social media, email, and word-of-mouth.
The final product is a testament to her creative brilliance, wisdom, and almost disorienting-ly strong work ethic.
Homecoming officially kicked off on September 8th with the retreat in the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York. I was present as a support for Alyssa but I also facilitated a number of sessions on embodiment, movement, and meditation. I also gifted each participant with a surprise private energy healing session.
The retreat was, in a word, magical. In Homecoming, Alyssa has created a container which, combined with her warmth and leadership, is a remarkable vehicle for deep personal transformation.
The participants, for their part, brought a level of open-mindedness and courage that facilitators like Alyssa and I dream of. All of us, facilitators and participants alike, were blown away by the growth and healing that took place over four days.
On a personal level, I had my first experience as a teacher, healer, and guide in a retreat setting. I had the opportunity to lead group somatic meditations, mindfulness hikes, and private sessions within the container of the program, which I found immensely gratifying.
The power of my work is largely dependent on the client’s willingness to receive it. I’m thankful to both Alyssa and each of the participants for their willingness to receive what I offered, make it their own, and heal themselves as a result.
The six week at-home course begins today and I’m looking forward to making a few guest appearances!
If you’re interested in learning more about Alyssa and Our Nature, you can follow @ournaturealways on IG or sign up for her mailing list by visiting ournaturepodast.com and scrolling to the bottom of the page. Her podcast, Our Nature, can be found wherever you listen to podcasts.
That’s it for this week. I’ll be back next Wednesday when I’ll discuss using the body as a powerful tool in cultivating presence and breaking the cycle of repetitive, spiraling thoughts and emotions.
Energetically,
David
