The Spring 2013 Be Present Retreat

Feast: A Soul Care Gathering
April 10-14, 2013

At the Feast Retreat, we will gather at Frog Creek Lodge in the Pacific Northwest woods and spend time sharing, playing, resting, cooking, creating, and dreaming. Through conversations and creative self-care adventures, we will explore the ebb and flow of life and experience ways we can, as Derek Walcott says in his poem “Love After Love”

Feast on your life.

Joemma Beach near Frog Creek Lodge

During this five-day soul care gathering, Kelly Barton, Hannah Marcotti, and Liz Lamoreux will be your guides as they create a safe space where you can show up as you. As a group, we will cook meals together, make necklace and bracelet talismans to take home with us, explore ways to practice self-care, and circle to share stories and make deep connections. 

When you arrive at this beautiful cabin in the Pacific Northwest woods, you will find a place when you can: lean into trust and your inner wisdom, open your heart to kindred spirits, and spend time playing, resting, and sitting in the quiet.

Note: Only 15 participant spots are available at this intimate retreat.

a peek into Frog Creek Lodge (taken at Unearth 2012 by Beth Hutson) 

Your retreat experience includes: 

• A safe environment that holds space for truth, laughter, moments of quiet, and the opportunity to share your story.
• A heart-opening five-day experience that begins with a welcome dinner and opening ceremony on Wednesday evening and ends with a closing ceremony Saturday evening and farewell breakfast Sunday morning.
• Daily group gatherings that will include creative self-care adventures in photography + writing, cooking meals together, jewelry making, and a few other good things.
• Space to connect with Liz, Hannah, and Kelly as your companions as they participate in the entire retreat alongside you.
• Time in community to explore meditation, ritual, and everyday sacredness as ways to be more present in your daily life.
• Daily meals and snacks that will nourish you and invite you to see food as a form of soul care.
• The opportunity to connect with kindred spirits who might just become life-long friends.
• Time away from your day-to-day roles where you can just show up as you.
• An invitation to come home to yourself.

Your tuition also includes: 

• Four nights of lodging, shared rooms (twin beds throughout the bedrooms with 2 to 3 people per room)
• All meals (except one dinner as the schedule includes free time one evening to explore the surrounding areas at your own pace)
• Snacks and hot tea/coffee/water provided daily
• All group gatherings led by Liz, Kelly, and Hannah
• Evening activities: Opening and closing gatherings, an art & soul brunch (which will provide the opportunity for mentors + participants to share, trade, and sell their artwork), and other activities
• Surprises and treats throughout our time together

When you come to Feast, you will want to have room in your suitcase because we will be sharing some of our favorite soul care goodies with you throughout the retreat and you’ll need some space to take them home.

Learn more about Feast, your guides, Frog Creek Lodge, and register here.

here

Over here, linen + thread + words are being joined together and each stitch feels like a prayer of hope, of trust, of choosing to stay open in the midst of whatever unfolds.

water your soul

December, you hold so much in your 31 days. The hustle and bustle of the holidays. The missing of those we love. The gatherings of family and friends and people we can't wait to hug and those we wish we didn't have to see. The loneliness that so often rests in the quiet spaces. The expectations, ours and others, that almost twinkle at the edges of each day. The hopes and the dreams and "the new year is almost here" anticipation all wrapped up around us, within us. 

There is beauty. And there is messy. There is peace. And there is the longest night of the year.

Many feel moved to go inward even though the world around us pushes us to do and be more.

This December, come along on a journey
to water your soul in the midst of it all.

Gather in community with like-minded spirits and give yourself the gift of remembering you, your soul care needs, your stories, you. Be gently reminded you that you are not alone as you experience all that this season brings.

How this program will work:

Emails to ground you :: From December 1 through December 31, you will receive three emails each week that will invite you to nourish yourself. Each email will include a soul care invitation along with encouragement and inspiration. These invitations might include "being present" practices such as meditations and reflection, short photography or writing prompts, or creative self-care recipes.  

Facebook community :: Beginning November 26 through the first week of January, we will also gather in an optional Facebook group to share pieces of ourselves and support one another. Here you will be able to connect about your experiences with the soul care work, share photographs, and have space held for you as you need it.

Learn more and register here.

pieces of this week

Monday started slow

I voted from my couch (this is your gentle reminder to vote)

Mary Oliver guided me back to myself again

I lit a candle and sent lots of love across the miles as I listened to the news

 

I helped a two year old build a boat and felt like I really had it together as a mama for a little while

I worked on a new collection of jewelry inspired by the magic where the forest meets the sea along the Washington and Oregon coasts

This little girl made my heart grow bigger as I witnessed her joy in the simple moments

I found my way to rest

And I made space for in-person connection and had lunch with a new friend.

As the rain falls and we settle in for a Friday evening, I hope this weekend will be full of time to recharge and have fun and unplug and laugh and read poetry and maybe even go on a date. 

May your weekend be full of lightness and ease...

ninja warrior :: a story, a soul mantra

ninja warrior . in the shop

This is me.

Ninja warrior me.

The me who holds a lunch box, juice cup, backpack, purse, and coat in one hand and picks up her toddler with the other.

Who uses words + a camera as secret weapons of peace and truth.

Who sifts through all of it to love fiercely. Me.

The me who puts a chicken to roast in the oven, colors with crayons, cleans up dog vomit, changes her clothes in the middle of the kitchen, reassures and stays calm all in under three minutes.

Who moves through roles almost seamlessly without even needing a costume change.

Who translates toddler code and social media babbling.

Who feels like she's undercover whenever she walks into Target alone.

Me.

Ninja warrior me.

The me who navigates unchartered lands and keeps her head above water even when she is terrified.

Who hides her stealth behind layers, ruffles, and knee-high red boots.

Yes.

Me.

Ninja warrior, sitting in the quiet, dancing in the beauty, honoring the realness, standing tall in all of it, learning how to rest, me.

***

This weekend, I made this locket for myself because I needed to simply own that being a woman is to be a ninja warrior sometimes. 

I shared it on Instagram and after getting a couple of emails about it, I've added it to the shop in case you need one too. Or you can customize this same locket with your own "this is me" phrase. (If you want help brainstorming your "this is me" phrase for your locket, just send over an email.)

May you stand tall as your warrior, peacemaker, real, beautiful self today.

(Thank you to Jen for our conversation a few months ago where she said that sometimes mamas are ninja warriors. I've held onto this phrase daily since then.)

trying to soften into the truth

When I posted this photo on Instagram over the weekend, I added a comment that said, "today feels hard. trying to just soften into that truth." It had been a hard day. And I was deeply missing my friends and family. I took this photo because I wanted to be seen. I took this photo because I needed to just let someone else know that I was having a hard day. And I was surrounded by love on Instagram. And I admit that I really needed it.

Sometimes I just don't know what to do with social media. I am sometimes mystified by what people choose to say or share. As we get closer to the election, my patience and kindness is tested by the words that appear in my various feeds. 

But then I am just so deeply moved by all the love that is there. By the kindness. By the way people circle around each other...when storms come, when tears fall, when grief arrives, when joy appears.

We just keep finding our way, don't we?

Life feels sharp at times. Or maybe it is my own edges that feel sharp. I want to invite in more ease, so I am working with this image of softening into the truths that make up the moments over here. Working with the word "soft" just feels right. It seems to be kindreds with "let it be" and "surrender." It makes me think of these lines from "Wild Geese" by Mary Oliver:

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.

Yes. This.

Opening up to the softness and the love. This feels like the right path for this moment.

xoxo,

Liz

there are things i want you to remember {8}

*****

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an october poem note

October 14, 10:12 PM

I'm sitting here listening to Mary Oliver read her poem through the speakers in this little silver box, and five words in, there you are. You didn't write poems. At least we didn't find any among the newspaper articles on how to care for violets and the grocery lists and shells and strands of your hair still threaded through the prickly pink velcro rollers. Yet each morning, you took the hand of your poet self when you walked around your yard curiously unearthing the new.