WOW!

This weekend I went back to camp. I loved camp as a girl. The only child in me loved the constant energy of living in a pack. The animal in me loved living outside. The water child in me loved moving in and out of the lake, wet and dry, cool and warm. My body exulted in the range of motion, freedom to run for no reason, move, move, move until I fell into bed and slept like a stone. And the eating, oh goodness, the raging hunger that comes from every ounce of you being put forth and stretched physically and metaphorically and the feeding of that hunger in deep rich breads, stews, pastas, soups.

And camp this weekend was the return. The retreat was called Homecoming and it was conceived, birthed and nurtured by one of my most talented friends--Lael Jepson. If you don't know Lael, I'm so sorry for that space in your life. If you want to know Lael check out her website and watch the video and know that as beautiful as that video is, it doesn't even begin to capture how spectacular the weekend was. We slept in cabins (really really cold cabins), we danced, we sang, we swam, we cried, we laughed until we almost peed, we returned to ourselves as women. And oh baby, did we eat! There were these two women, no not women, food GODDESSES whose artistry nourished us in every dimension. I can't really describe it adequately but a sampling for my readers: hand made truffles, warm english muffins made from scratch, soups that filled you and whipped your senses with spices, pear stuffed french toast and ginger tea.

So I went back to camp to come home. And I found 40 other women who were there to do the same thing, coming from different geographies of both land and soul. And we shared under the arching mother oak, before the smoking fire, in front of the still lake, how much we need to rejuvenate and return. How our gifts of emotion, passion, clarity, power, presence and leadership need to be shared, and shored and stored. That is our home, we are never without it, we are never alone. Funny that a "retreat" has brought me back into the world feeling tall and strong and ready to kick some ass.

Oh (and here comes the wind) I also learned, that every woman needs a Dobby!