INVITATION & INTENTIONS

Dear friends,

I found a hidden waterfall this spring.

I had lived here for nearly forty years and never knew it was there. We were trudging up a hill through sodden, squelchy ground when I heard it — the distinct sound of a waterfall. Like a bee to nectar, I followed the sound until I came upon a cascading waterfall in a glen.

Pure delight.

I have been returning ever since. Offering flowers from the avenue leading up to it, songs from my limited memorized repertoire, and sharing what is on my heart. Tending the quiet. Listening for what wants to be heard.

Over the weeks, the waterfall has gone from gushing with spring rains to dry — now just puddles and drips falling through the mosses. And in its own unhurried way, it told me something: wait. The water will surely flow. It is made by and for the water to flow through just as we are made for spirit to flow through us.

This retreat has been gestating in me since mid-winter and I have felt all the pieces gathering slowly — not pushed into existence but allowed to gurgle up from beneath the surface, take its form, and come through when it’s ready. And now here it is, arriving in the right time, the right shape, carrying what it was always meant to carry.

The world is in the first early stages of labor. For years I’ve been feeling that we are gestating. I’ve been feeling that vibration, the rumbling and stirring beneath the surface of everything. And now something is shifting and we are in the early stages of labor – starting to give birth to a new version of humanity. It’s not time to push yet.

What’s being called for is being the midwife that wise, steady presence so necessary at the birthing process. The ones who know how to the space for new fragile life without forcing it and without flinching.

And the midwife lives in us. She is the quality of presence that becomes available when we stop performing and finally, truly sink deep into ourselves.

So over Fall Equinox — when the veil grows thin and the earth herself is turning — I’m calling together a small circle of kindred spirits at Light on the Hill Retreat Center in Upstate New York.

We’ll take the time to sink deeply down into ourselves and feel the thrum of the earth beneath us so that we can hear the whisper of the soul that is always there but hard to discern above the din of this noisy of this world.

Intuition doesn't shout. It whispers. And the deeper into the eternal and tune into nature’s rhythm, the more delicate the whisper that we can hear.

Kindred spirits will come together to tune into the earth and the spirits of the land that we can return to our lives to offer our gifts into the world from that place rather than from depletion.

I hope this invitation arrives at the right time and speaks to your heart.

With love,

Jana