Retreat Day 5

This is the last day of our retreat. We had breakfast, then morning pages. We shared our celebration poems before lunch and they sure put us in a good mood..all that cause for celebration was catching.

We took out all the leftovers and had them for lunch because we knew this would be the last chance to eat them because Dolly and Diane would be cooking dinner for us. They created a typical Costa Rican dinner! The smells coming from our kitchen were heavenly. Arroz con Pollo,Salsa Lizano,colorful fresh salad, Corn Tortillas. Add to that desserts consisting of Key Lime Pie and Flan and you have a good idea of what happy retreaters we were. The women did such a wonderful job of bringing Costa Rica to Florida.


Sadly, Ann took her leave this morning for California. It was disconcerting for us to carry on without her but we soon got back to business. She left here in such a colorful way, I'll have to share a photo. Ann is a story teller to fourth graders and she wanted to get back for her presentation the next day. We sure missed her though. I was again amazed at how close you get to your friends when you do a retreat like this. We aren't sure what the dynamics are but we produce work and we cement our friendships in a way that we found difficult to discribe. This is only our second annual retreat so perhaps we will understand more as we go along. We knew that this retreat was significant in so many ways though.

Our afternoon assignment was to write a resolution to our theme chapbook. We shared our stories and a few other poems and then had our closing ceremony. We lit nine candles representing the Skywriters as a reminder of how bright we are alone and just brilliant together. J

I don't believe I've mentioned the Sorry Jar.Each time a Skywriter found herself saying "I'm sorry", she'd have to put a dollar in. We have saved a lot of money in that jar and it's still adding up so we aren't learning our lesson well but it sure is making us cognizant of that word in our vocabulary and whether it is really appropriate or not. We started out by saying that we couldn't complain, explain, or talk about how lousy our work was before we read it.LOL It's a habit I know and we want to tell everyone its not really that good and we know it. Not allowed here and it's been a good rule. This year we added the Sorry Jar to make ourselves more aware of our complaints and self deprecating remarks we make about our own work or even ourselves.


We had our closing ceremony with flowers, candles lit to represent us as Skywriters. Diane then led us in a meditation that was meaningful to us and we understood a bit more about meditation and its value when she was done.

Jeni came this evening to meet every one. I was so glad that they got to meet her finally. She had been sick earlier in the week and I thought she might not be able to come by. I was so glad to see her and am so proud of her . She's such a sweetheart and I love her so much!

The retreat is over and that's a little sad but we will be seeing Plant City tomorrow and also going to the Strawberry Festival so it's time to play a bit.