I am beyond delighted to announce that I will be one of the three facilitators at a restorative retreat in Costa Rica from February 15 to 22nd, 2011.
How would you like to spend a week in the jungle and on the beach, in deep communication with yourself, body and soul, through yoga, movement and writing?

I have been working with Deepam as a writing colleague for the last year and I have taken a yoga class with Esana (the most amazing yoga class of my life).

COSTA RICA IN WINTER – FEBRUARY 15th TO 22nd, 2011

– a week to remember: to write your heart, open your body, dance your soul, or do nothing at all… Whatever you need to restore you to yourself.

With Evelyn Lofty, Deepam Wadds, Susan Lynn Reynolds

• Journalling as a Contemplative Practice
• Restorative Kripalu Yoga
• Guided Dance Meditation
• Fabulous, delicious meals prepared from local ingredients (dietary needs are honoured).
• Expansive, non-commercial Pacific Ocean beach
• Salt Water Pool
• Open sided yoga/movement cabana
• Private, gated estate, exclusively for our retreat (maximum 16 participants) – personal, attentive, delightful service

The estate is located just north of Dominical on the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica.

Deepam organized and facilitated the retreat last year and will be doing so again this year. Since she’s been there before, and since she’s a beautiful writer, I thought I’d let her words speak for themselves. This is what she has written about this year’s event (the pictures are from last year):

February. The winter has gone on too long. Summer seems a thousand days away. The body is heavy with winter’s weight, and it longs to stretch and move in a warm and friendly place. To let fall the coat and kick off the boots, and run through the surf on an endless beach.

Yoga in the jungle. Freefall writing to tap into the magic of words. Endless days on the beach. Dance meditation before dinner. New and old friends to chat and laugh with. Delicious meals made from local produce. The music of cicadas. Salt-water pool. Costa Rica. The Rich Coast.

A dear friend has been urging me for a few years to take a group on retreat to Cabinas Alma, near Dominical, in Costa Rica. When she went there on a yoga retreat, it was a “the rest is history” sort of story. She fell in love with the land and the sea there, made fast friends with Sabina, the owner of the estate, and bought herself a piece of paradise close by.

Since 1998, Esana and I have hosted retreats that feature Kripalu Yoga, moving meditations, and awareness exercises. In the past few years, we have offered them twice a year, usually for a weekend. The idea of taking a group far from home at first was daunting, but when I offered the suggestion to Esana, her instant, yes! made the possibility a reality.

We took our first group of seventeen to this oasis on the Pacific coast last February(2010). To say that it was a wonderful experience would be an understatement. We had a perfect mix of couples, singles and even a mother and son. The grounds are lush, filled with nourishing and healing plants and trees – from cashew and starfruit, to pineapples, guanabana, avocado, mango, banana, papaya, a full herb garden, flowering trees and flowering bushes, toucans in the trees, cicadas layering the air with their hypnotic sound. The warmth of the place wraps you in its arms and inspires your muscles to let go into deep relaxation. The yoga palapa sits across a small arched bridge from the dining room. It’s an open-air space tucked into the jungle. Here, we also danced, overhead fans blazing away the heat from our bodies.

And then there is the beach. What was so stunning about this beach is the space – it stretches wide and magnificent as far as the eye can see, in both directions. Bordered by palm and shrubbery for picnics and refuge from the sun, it is a vast playground of unblemished sand and sea. Some participants spent hours combing the beach for sand dollars, shells, and bits of treasure. Others, like me, jumped and played in the waves, until the sun set.

And then there is the food. Almost exclusively organic, the food was simply prepared, local, delicious and satisfying. Fresh fish and a wonderful array of vegetables and grains. Every meal a delight as well as an opportunity to meet and chat with participants in a gorgeous setting.

And then there is the pool. Just up a stone step path and through an archway waits a perfect blue salt-water pool, surrounded by a wooden and tile deck. There we lounge or swim or hang out, arms slung over the edge as our legs slowly slide back and forth through the silky water, chatting and laughing , or with our heads back, drinking in the fragrance of the flowering trees.

In the morning, before breakfast, we practice a gentle, flowing yoga, our senses ignited amidst the sounds of roosters and cicadas, huge brilliant blue butterflies drifting by. We learned this trip, about when to dance and when to sit, so that for our next trip, we have put each meditation in a place that suits the pace of the place. After breakfast, we have the honour of having my own writing teacher, Susan Lynn Reynolds, facilitating an hour or so of “freefall” writing practice. This is an opportunity to let your pens do the writing, to get out of the critic’s way, and let the magic happen.

During the day, we can go to the beach, take a trip to Dominical, hire a horse, go to the nearby eco-reserve and take a zipline excursion through the jungle. You can even spend the day on horseback, taking a trip to a magnificent waterfall.

Before dinner, I offer a moving meditation, an exploration of rhythm as we tap into the wellspring of the body’s expression. After dinner, a quiet meditation and optional reading from the day’s writing. Doesn’t that sound like fun?

Participants are free to pick and choose which activities they wish to join. No pressure. No hurry. No worries.

This year, we are offering the retreat for the week of February 15 to 22, 2011. In our costs, we have included flight, accommodation, meals, facilitation and taxes. You just have to show up!

Testimonials from last year’s participants:

“Wow – Yes. A perfect combination of luxury and simplicity, rest and activity, hospitality and respite, people and place. Count me in!” E.L.

“Personally, I liked everything… I enjoyed: the food, the atmosphere, the yoga and dance, the special activities: zipline, kayaking the mangrove, walking the beach, riding the surf, browsing and shopping, horsebacking to the waterfalls, splashing in the pool… Oh – the facilitation was great! Returning… someday. Finally, experiencing the here and now!” S.S.

“I would do it again next year and I would not change anything. Yoga, movement, activities, food, location all superb! You did a magnificent job!” T.R.
“Fabulous food every meal, lovely garden, wonderful accommodating hostess (Sabina is the best), great rooms, great pool, wonderful flower arrangements in the dining room, program both dance and yoga excellent, wonderful staff…” C.Y.

“What I liked: fresh fruit YUM!!!, tour of grounds, eating healthy, using the pool anytime, yoga and dancing, the camaraderie of everyone, the slower pace of just being able to read and relax…” D.B.

“The accommodations were wonderful. I very much appreciated the ease of saying, yes – and the retreat was booked. I liked that I didn’t have to think about the travel, accommodations or meals (less stress and can focus on relaxation). The food was spectacular! Very wholesome and delicious. A1!! The exercises were great…” “It is hard to say exactly what experience each individual had in Costa Rica, I can say it was magical and restorative. (and I knew when I walked into work on Monday morning…I wasn’t there anymore.”J.B.

Thanks so much for arranging this trip. What a great experience! I actually enjoyed the lack of scheduling and the spontaneity of unplanned trips and other adventures. My life can be much too structured. My only suggestion is that perhaps we could incorporate more meditation into the evenings. The one Esana facilitated was an eye-opening experience (no pun intended). M.G.

“…Would definitely repeat… I really liked starting the day with yoga and doing so early. One and a half hours was perfect. Esana was great as ever (expect no less). I also enjoyed the meditative dance in the evenings. I liked the amount of free time. This gave me what I valued most – the chance to slow right down and live from moment to moment without worrying about time and racing. The setting was perfect. The food and Sabina’s presence added immensely. Felt well held by Deepam – like you were looking out for everyone’s welfare and managing the zillion details with great care and patience. Thank you all so much.” J.O.

“We did so much in eight days it will take me as much time to review and settle the memories in place. The waterfall trip does stand out. The jungle, the meals, the monkeys, the pride of the family owners and the climb to dive. I think about once every 55 years is about right for that experience of diving free…I’m mindfully washing the sand and salt from my possessions but not my spirit. I had plenty of personal private time by the pool at sunrise and at 10:00pm, solo trips to town and simple prayer before each meal… as I prepare tonight’s meal I reflect that everything served to me was fresh and freshly prepared. Many thanks for your hard work preparing and dealing with unforeseen events. As an adherent of chaos and order I too went with the flow. G.T.

The Details:

ALL-INCLUSIVE (FLIGHT, PROGRAM, ACCOMMODATION, MEALS, TRANSFERS & TAXES) $2200. PER PERSON, BASED ON DOUBLE OCCUPANCY.

Registration is done on the Balanced Body Studio website:

http://www.balancedbodystudio.ca/costa-rica-retreat.html

A $500.00 deposit is required to hold your spot for this. (Limited to 16 participants).

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I’ve been meaning for a long time to try and take some pictures of a Sanctuary Sunday.  I even get the camera set up on the tripod…  but then I get busy leading the exercises and doing my own writing and I always forget.

Sanctuary retreatant and poet Lloyd Gibb brought his camera in March, took these pictures, and was kind enough to give me copies.  Thank you Lloyd!

Article by Fred Ford

– originally printed in the 2007 September/ October edition of the WordWeaver

Nothing stresses me out more than relaxation exercises. On-the-spot writing isn’t for me either: I need at least an hour’s worth of agonizing before I can put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard). I’ve done some novel marathons, but they don’t count because I arrive pre-agonized. You can guess that I don’t often indulge in the tranquility of writing retreats.

Well, not any more. I’d been hearing good things about the Sanctuary Sundays conducted by Sue Reynolds at her Uplands Writing Retreat. I’d also been finding excuses lately to work on everything else in the world but writing, so I decided to go. I needed to get away from the distractions of my normal “comfort zones.” I was even willing to brave some relaxation exercises.

The drive up to Port Perry is therapeutic in itself, especially on the last weekend of April. The horses grazing on new green grass were a vision from the peaceable kingdom. The first wildflowers by the side of the dirt road warmed my winter-weary heart. The Uplands Writing Center is a welcoming green bungalow hidden behind a row of fir trees.

Sue Reynolds ensured the atmosphere was casual and welcoming. She covered us off on some basic principles for the day: When it came to writing, we should just write. If it was junk, that was OK. We were there to embrace our inner garbage. “Don’t let the hand stop moving,” she admonished. Response to each others work was to be equally relaxed. Forget editing and critical feedback: speak about immediate impact and what in the writing goes straight to the heart.

Sue provides new exercises for each Sunday, so I’m not giving anything away by describing April’s writing activities.

First the dreaded relaxation exercise: concentrating on my breathing confirms what I’ve always suspected: I don’t know how to breathe right.

Next visualize a door: any door, what lies beyond, and then write about it.

Extract three lines from the poem “Some Questions You Might Ask” by Mary Oliver, and then use those lines as a starting point for a new piece.

Write a new poem reproducing the rhythmic structure of “The Red Wheelbarrow” by William Carlos Williams. We were allowed to let the hand stop moving for this one as we pondered the meter of the original.

Choose an image from a selection of M.C. Escher prints, and let it inspire some writing.

Select a portrait from a sheaf of photographs and, using that visual aid, write about some character we have created.

Perhaps the spring weather wove some magic, or maybe the number of exercises involving poetry had something to do with it, but a number of us responded to the exercises with poems of our own. When we turned to prose, we found new characters coming to us unbidden. Spontaneity allowed us to explore beyond the edges of our normal creativity.

After a fabulous lunch, the afternoon was silent. We were left to our own devices: go for a walk, meditate and, hopefully, write. And write we did. In my case, the morning geared me up to work on a novel where I have been floundering for a long time. For the M.C. Escher exercise, I wrote an essay concerning a problem character. The artist’s pyramid of triangles transmuting into birds became a symbol not only of this character, but of the whole book. While I had been thinking of combining two other characters, when I saw the amalgamated character’s face staring at me from Sue’s portfolio of photographs, the long-postponed decision was made in an instant. By the time I tackled the opening pages of the novel, I was free from my inner-editor. Unnecessary scenes were thrown into the void and what remained was rewritten with a new verve.

So, despite Adrian Michael Kelly’s warning at the May breakfast about workshops and retreats sometimes being an appealing way to part people from their money, for me Sanctuary Sunday is well worth the cost. My experience at the Uplands Writing Retreat was not just a nice chance to get away. I took the experience home, and I have since found that the inner elation and the sense of freedom have remained. Instead of allowing myself to be blocked, I improvise solutions. They may not be perfect, but they’ll do for the time being. Yes, I’ll go back. Even if it does mean more relaxation exercises!

The pictures on this page were taken here at Uplands in January 2009. WE lovingly refer to this place as Narnia because it’s got its own little microclimate – the snow comes early and stays late. But I’ve NEVER seen snow here like this year.

Taken out the back window on Jan. 11, 2009

Look how high the snow is just outside the window!

Even the chimney has snow on it

Incentive to stay inside and write!

Many writers have difficulty finding creative time (or space) in their “normal” lives. The opportunity to spend an entire day in deep conversation with their Muses and working on a current project seems too good to be true. Sanctuary Sunday is designed to make all of this happen in a beautiful setting and in the friendly company of other likeminded writers.

At a Writers’ Sanctuary Sunday, we begin at 10:00 a.m. You are welcome to arrive a few minutes early to pick your spot, settle in, grab a coffee and muffin or some fruit and chat with the others.

The morning is spent doing a series of on-the-spot writing exercises to lubricate the machinery – get the creative writer in you feeling more relaxed, focused and perhaps even a little experimental.

After the delicious lunch (provided) the afternoons are spent in silent communion with other writers, working either on a computer or by hand on whatever project is preoccupying you as a writer these days. If you don’t have a laptop you will be provided with a computer (if you want to work on the keyboard) and your word file can be emailed to you at the end of the day.

Uplands is in a peaceful rural location, so you are also welcome to go out for a walk on quiet country lanes if you need a break. There’s even a couch or two if you need your afternoon nap for half an hour to wake up refreshed and ready to write some more!

Writing is over at 4:45 p.m. for those who need to get home, but if you wish to stay, there will be an opportunity to sit a while longer, to share some of what you’ve been working on and to debrief, discuss issues of craft, etc.