and am sending up a prayer that my car will get me there and back. The clutch is feeling a mite squishy to me.

Will be back Sunday night. Try not to get into too much trouble without me.

This entry was originally posted at http://pegkerr.dreamwidth.org/1438072.html. There are comments on the post.

I've succumbed to the same illness Delia had. I woke up 1:00 a.m. this morning to a sensation of vast interior discomfort and then spent the next three hours vomiting my guts out. And other symptoms too nasty to recount.

So my retreat is canceled, which I'm absolutely crushed about; I was SO looking forward to it. I'm going to try to reschedule it for early December. So I'll be around this weekend after all, but I'm probably going to be too weak to sit at the keyboard today.

I lost 3 1/2 pounds between 1:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. this morning. The vomiting has stopped for now, but I feel as though I've been beaten all over with sticks. I'm crawling back into bed.

Good grief, Fiona's probably next.

Peg

This entry was originally posted at http://pegkerr.dreamwidth.org/1429041.html. There are comments on the post.

I'm going back to the St. Benedict's spirituality center for a retreat, this Thursday through Sunday. I'll bring my soul collage supplies, take walks.

Heaven knows I need to get away.

This entry was originally posted at http://pegkerr.dreamwidth.org/1427810.html. There are comments on the post.

Long time readers of my journal know that I've written extensively about the issue of choosing the heart of flesh vs. the heart of stone. This was one of the cards I'd specifically intended to make when I left for the retreat. I had searched for specific images to use for it and had them all printed out and ready. On a walk the second day I was there, while I was mulling over this theme (it turned out to be the theme for the entire retreat) I happened to glance down at my feet and I discovered this (click any picture twice to see it close up):





So as soon as I finished my walk, I went in and made this card:

Heart of Flesh vs. Heart of Stone - Council Suit I am the One who offers you the choice between being fully human, able to feel pain as well as joy, and being remote, perhaps more powerful and untroubled, but absolutely untouched by human emotion. Choose carefully

Every soul collage deck should enclose a Source card, the One from which everything springs. You may interpret it as God or the Big Bang or the heart of a flower, or what you will. Fiona insouciantly noted that the sillouette looks like a fat cat tipped over on its side.

( SourceCollapse )

( BirthCollapse )

( The GardenerCollapse )

( Serene Heart CenterCollapse )

( The Frozen Wasteland WithinCollapse )
This entry was originally posted at http://pegkerr.dreamwidth.org/1258984.html. There are comments on the post.

I'm home again. My experience at St. Benedict's Spirituality Center was just as positive as last time for the most part. I appreciated seeing Sister Dorothy, Sister Luanne, Sister Josue and Sister Rita again, all of whom I met last year. I really do want to make this an annual event. I was pleased to see the candle sculpture standing over the mantlepiece. I lit the candles at night as I worked on soul collage cards.

Candle Tree at St. Benedict's - 2009

The last night and day, they had a planned retreat scheduled, which was attended by twelve women, and I just ended up joining that. That was okay, but I really did like the entirely private retreat a little bit better.

Thank you for your words of comfort and good wishes and your prayers; I really felt the support from all of you. As I said, I worked on soul collage and made several new cards which I'll post later tonight or perhaps tomorrow.

I told the sisters about the Decrease Worldsuck project. They thought it sounded awesome.

I checked the website to give contact information to Rob, and noted, hey, the sisters have a blog. Brand new, just three entries so far, but I've syndicated it. stbensisters_feed and stbensisters.

It was probably a bit much to hope they'd have a twitter page.

I'm off, as soon as the socks get out of the dryer. I will have my cell phone with me if any needs to reach me.

The last time I went on a retreat, I asked people to send me trees, and I got many marvelous responses. Thank you.

I'm going on retreat again because as you know things have been hard lately, and so I've been struggling. This time, I'll simply ask for this: I'd just appreciate an encouraging note. Or an affirmation. Or a good wish. Or a prayer. Or simply something just to think about in the days to come. Tell me what you think I'm doing right, tell me I'll get through this (me and my family, both). Tell my why you like reading this LiveJournal.

Tell me anything you think will give me light in dark places. Lurkers, I'd really appreciate hearing from you, too.

Thanks.

Love,
Peg

I haven't been posting because I've been either been huddled in bed, sucking down pot after pot of Celestial Seasonings Bengel Spice tea, or lolling in the bathtub, reading mysteries and steaming out my sinuses. I had already asked for most of this week off, Tuesday (today) through Friday because I had planned another retreat at St. Benedict's. At this point, I think I'll leave for the retreat tomorrow. I didn't have a fever anymore yesterday, but I'm still coughing a bit. I certainly don't want to give this to the nuns (I'm guessing it's probably H1N1. Fiona and Rob had it last week, although they weren't as congested as me. In their case, it was more exhaustion). I'm using the Neti pot twice a day to ward off any secondary bacterial infections. I might choose to eat by myself the first day I arrive--they offer you the choice to do that, if you'd like to eat in silence--just to keep away from the sisters for another day, just in case.

I plan to work on soul collage cards, mostly: I have a new stack of magazines to destroy. Thanks to those who donated.

The retreat, as I said, was wonderful. The St. Benedict's Monastery, which is associated with the Sisters of the Order of St. Benedict, is on the campus of the College of Saint Benedict, a woman's college in St. Joseph, Minnesota (the nearby men's college is St. John's). It's the largest resident community of Benedictine nuns at present in the world, although there's a group in Africa which is getting close in size. The median age of the Sisters (I believe) is around 74. The Spirituality Center, where I stayed, had another life as a college dormitory, but now people on retreat stay there, as well as groups who come to use the center. Very comfortable. I had two strokes of luck: my visit was actually timed with the college's spring break, so there were no students around, which meant it was extremely quiet. And there were no other people staying in the Spirituality Center, either. There was one woman who was also on a retreat (a week of respite from caring for her father, who has Alzheimer's), but she was staying at the Hermitage. These are two little rustic cottages: one is kept for people who come for retreat, as I did, and one is reserved for Sisters of the order for their retreats. The Hermitage might be nice to do some time, but I was perfectly happy at the Spirituality Center, since there was no one else staying there but me. Sisters staffed it during the day, but I had the place to myself at night, and it was nice to go to the kitchen and make a cup of tea, and have a plate of the homemade cookies that the Sisters made and helpfully tucked into the breadbox for me. I ate breakfast at the Spirituality Center's kitchen--cereal or eggs. One day I made French toast. Lunch and dinner I ate with the Sisters in their dining hall.

It felt so strange, in a way, the way they took care of me. It made me realize how much being a caretaker is part of my daily life, that having that role reversed seemed like such a big deal. The first morning I came into the Spirituality Center's kitchen for breakfast, there was a place setting of dishes all nicely set out on the counter. "Oh, they're just showing me what dishes are available," I thought vaguely, and pulled other dishes out of the cupboard for my own meal. "But we left those dishes out for you," Sister Luanne told me afterward. And it felt positively decadent to be told to just leave my dishes in the sink. "I can put them in the dishwasher," I protested, trying to be polite. I thought of all the times I had harangued my family to clean up after themselves instead of leaving their dishes for me to do. "Oh, no," Sister Teresa said, smiling. "That's what we do." A Sister was there to accompany me at the lunches and dinners, so that I would have company if I wanted it--but they would show me the little side room where I could eat by myself in silence, if I preferred--which I did on Tuesday, because I was struggling with a bout of tears at lunchtime. If I dropped a spoon or a fork in the dining hall, a Sister would immediately fetch me one to replace it.

Their kindness was part of their service, I realized. All their work that they do, teaching, administrative, nursing, or caring for people on retreat, is their vocation.

The peace sank into my bones, and I embraced it with relief. Threaded throughout the day, the sisters keep the Liturgy of the Hours: morning prayer before breakfast at 7:00 a.m.--I never managed to make that--midday at 11:30 a.m., right before lunch (went to all of those), mass at 5:00 p.m. (ditto) and vespers at 7:00 p.m. (went to that about half the time). I did yoga. I walked in the cold, breathing the crisp air and looking at the sky, sometimes listening to the Holy Tree playlist.

I had a session of spiritual counseling with Sister Josue, which was helpful, and gave me much to think about. I got a massage from Stephanie, who is the newest postulant to the community--she was a massage therapist before coming to St. Benedict's. Sister Dorothy helped me track down a piece of artwork I found mentioned in some of the materials about the Order: apparently, the order's founder, Mother Benedicta Riepp, reported a dream:

I saw a large tree growing up, covered all over with beautiful white blossoms. I believe that the dream is an image of the beautiful life of unity and love shared by all the members (of the new foundation in America).

A piece of artwork was commissioned of the blooming tree in Mother Benedicta's dream for the St. Benedict's Monastery's 150th Anniversary, and Sister Dorothy kindly arranged for me a private viewing to see one of the prints.

I did the soulcollaging at night. That was wonderful. Mostly, I was going through magazines and cutting out images that struck me (back issues of National Geographic are the new crack for me.) But I did make three cards and I have many ideas for further ones, too. What the whole thing did was to give me reassurance about one of my deepest fears, which I think was one of the things that has driven my depression: the sense that I've lost my creativity. By happy chance, I took my ribbon coat to the retreat, and in fact sewed on another ribbon while I was there. I wore it one day and was stopped over and over again by various Sisters in the dining hall who asked me questions about it: "How lovely! Why, you made it yourself? My, how creative you are!" What I realized when I was soulcollaging was the entire process was almost exactly like what I used to do when I wrote short stories: in preparation, I would read voraciously, just as I was combing through images now. I'd get three or four ideas, and then, when one more appeared, the crucial one, the whole story would blossom in my mind, as if I'd dropped a seed crystal into a supersaturated solution, making a crystalline structure bloom. The way the cards came together was just the same.

I haven't lost it, I thought with relief. It's still buried under there, somewhere, even if I'm not writing fiction right now.

It was hard to leave. But Sister Rita gave me a gift when I did that touched me very deeply. With exquisite tact, she didn't hand it to me directly, which might have put me in the awkward situation of wondering whether I should accept it or not. Instead, she handed it on to the Sister who checked me out of the Center to give to me then, a big and beautiful coffee table book filled with splendid photographs: The Meaning of Trees: Botany, History, Healing, Lore, by Fred Hageneder. ( Here is the coverCollapse )

I would strongly recommend the St. Benedict Monastery's Spirituality Center for retreats. If you go, and you get half out of it that I did, you will be very blessed indeed.

It was absolutely everything I hoped it would be. The Sisters were kindness itself to me. In fact, it was so perfect that I think I'd like to make it an annual event. I'll post a full report later, but first, I just wanted to post this: I got an immediate sign that, yes, I had come to the right place when I walked into the Spirituality Center, where I was to stay while I was there, and I found this sculpture, set with candles, on the mantle above the fireplace in the lounge. I lit it at night while I was working on the soulcollaging project (many, many thanks for that brilliant suggestion, anam_cara, and yes, I got the package, thank you)! I'll give a fuller report later, but we're getting busy to go to Minicon. But I wanted to show you the basis for my beautiful new icon first.

Holy Tree at St. Benedict's Spirituality Center (March 17 - 20, 2008 retreat)