For the past week, I’ve been happily ensconced in a rented house in The Sea Ranch on a writing retreat. While I’ve been here, my days have all looked pretty much the same…writing, walking among the wildflowers that cover the bluffs above the ocean, writing some more.
It’s reminded me of being in sesshin, the seven day silent retreat that is part of the Zen tradition. In sesshin, all our days also look the same. Meditate, sweep the leaves from the temple steps or chop carrots in the kitchen, meditate some more.
In both instances, I find an enormous freedom in not having to plan my day, in setting aside the things I think I need to be doing, and disregarding the insistent tug of my everyday life.
When I am on writing retreat, when I adhere to what in Zen is called ‘the discipline of the schedule,’ I’m free to concentrate solely my story world. And after only a day or so, it becomes as real as the one waiting for me at home.
Silent retreat is the opportunity to notice what keeps your attention at the surface, to be honest with yourself about what prevents you from falling into your innermost depth, and to practice surrender of the mind’s safety-seeking strategies.
- Amoda Maa Jeevan, Embodied Enlightenment
I love the idea of surrendering my mind’s safety-seeking strategies. Because what is more safety-seeking than distraction? I also love the way letting go of these strategies allows me to fall into my innermost depth. Because what else is writing except falling in the innermost depth of our imaginations?
“Going nowhere isn't about turning your back on the world; it's about stepping away now and then so that you can see the world more clearly and love it more deeply.”
- Pico Iyer, The Art of Stillness
The idea that retreat isn’t about turning my back on the world, that instead it’s about stepping away from the world so I can see it more clearly, applies equally to my writing. When I stay in a place that isn’t mine, inhabit a space of time I haven’t filled with obligations, I begin to see my characters with more clarity. And when I see my characters more clearly, I cannot help but love them more deeply (a prerequisite for rendering them truthfully on the page).
Where to go on retreat: Because I live in a city, I like my retreats to take me to nature. Walks near the ocean or through the woods—what Japanese call ‘forest bathing’—are the best way to clear my head between bouts of writing.
I have done writing retreats in rented houses at The Sea Ranch (via Airbnb), in monasteries (New Camaldoli Hermitage in Big Sur and Green Gulch Farm in Marin County), in a cabin in the Sierras borrowed from friends, and at a ranch Georgia O’Keefe loved in New Mexico (Ghost Ranch). I’ve even done one in a house I exchanged for mine in the Italian lakes.
I’ve done these retreat alone, and with other writers, gone away for 3 days to 3 weeks, and while each has been a little different from the other, every one of them has sent me back to my writing with new clarity and passion.
"I love the idea of surrendering my mind’s safety-seeking strategies. Because what is more safety-seeking than distraction? I also love the way letting go of these strategies allows me to fall into my innermost depth. Because what else is writing except falling in the innermost depth of our imaginations?"
I love that paragraph and will remember it as I work on a big project that occasionally has me all tangled up in bargaining, listlessness, etc.
Many of my poems are meditative. Feel free to check out my Substack. I will be sub'ing to yours.