I Am

It’s time for a personal update that is all about Dawn the Person instead of Dawn the Mom. I’ve had an extremely powerful past few months, approaching age 40 in 2 years and really beginning to self actualize.

About twelve years ago I had a vision. In the midst of my twenties I felt like women didn’t have good relationships with each other in our culture and I wanted to create a place for them to come together, learn from each other, and support each other. Nine years ago I found myself at a retreat center in the pine woods of East Texas which is owned and maintained by an amazing woman who had founded The Fellowship of Comparative Religion, Glenda Taylor. I was enchanted with the retreat center, the woman, and the work that she has made her life. I called her a few weeks after that retreat and said, “Glenda, I’d like to apprentice with you.” When she asked what I meant by that I said that I wasn’t really sure, I just wanted to learn how to take care of a retreat center. Seemed like a good start for my vision. So I spent the next few years volunteering to cook for 2 womens retreats and 2 kids retreats each year. Being in the kitchen was an amazing way for me to absorb, learn, and grow. Then I started going out and spending time with Glenda alone. Asking her questions. It’s all a bit of a blur from there as I just kept showing up, attending retreats, asking questions, and slowly, ever so slowly, she gave me more and more responsibility. Earlier this year Glenda turned to me and said, “Dawn, you need to plan your own retreat.”

Now, Glenda’s done that a few times, told me it was time for me to do something that I had figured it would be years until I was ready for. It’s scary, but I not only have a strong belief in the tradition of apprenticeship but also an incredible trust built up from the nine years I’ve spent working with Glenda. I decided not to think too much about it and picked a date and sent out an invitation to a very large group of people who I thought might be interested in what I was going for. Since my love is comparative religious studies, I wanted to bring together a group of people interested in exploring their relationship with the Divine through the spiritual traditions from around the world.

In the past two months I’ve attended three retreats and facilitated one. I facilitated a coming of age ceremony at a retreat in October and for some reason the process for working on that ceremony and my retreat broke open an incredible new growth process for me. Who knows why or how these things happen but I suddenly find myself energized and expanding beyond who I was just a few months ago. My own personal spiritual practice has taken off in new directions with great enthusiasm.

It is now two weeks since I facilitated my retreat and one week since finishing up what I call the “fall retreat season”. I find myself physically exhausted, body aches with no other symptoms and a desire to go to bed for three days. Unfortunately that’s not an option so I’m giving myself permission to ignore housework and just focus on spending time playing with the boys. It’s a nice change for me and the boys are old enough to kind of understand that mommy isn’t well. But as my body wants to crawl into a cave, my heart and mind are burst open. It’s ironic and strange and wonderful.

My retreat went well. Even better then I had dared to expect. It put an incredible amount of trust and faith inside of me for the power of Spirit. The right people, in the right place at the right time. I created the intention, invited others to do the same, and together we joined with the Great Mystery to bring about deep, heart experiences. I have trouble explaining in words what this retreat and it’s experience mean to me. It’s so deep and so profound that I spent the two days after filled with constant love and compassion. And as I came out of that beautiful place, and back into my “norm”, a part of me is still digesting, still integrating, and still taking it all in.

I had an interesting experience with fear this fall. We danced together in a whole new way as right before both the Coming of Age ceremony in October and the retreat in November I woke those mornings to find my body responding in terror, while my mind was in peace. My stomach was nauseous, my head was hurting, my heart pounding. I was shocked to be experiencing these physical sensations because my mind was so at peace. What’s going on? As I explained to Forest and Logan, a part of my psyche was afraid and not as trusting as the other parts who had been so engaged in the process of creation for both events. It took a lot of deep breathing and internal conversation to calm things down. And I got to have a very cool conversation with the boys using words like “psyche”, “ego” and “parts of myself”. It was a shock to me to be so disassociated with that fear the way that I was, as much as feeling that way physically sucked, it was inspiring to know that all my physiological and spiritual work over the past 9 years had paid off in my ability to recognize that my whole being didn’t feel that fear, but a part of me did, and I knew how to work with that.

Earlier this year I was struck by the thought that I’m approaching age forty. When I was approaching thirty I thought I knew what that would be about. I threw myself a huge party and went out of my twenties with a huge bang. It wasn’t graceful or even safe, but it was a good way for me to seal the feelings that I was letting go of a whole lot of what had been my focus in my twenties. And that was ok. I knew that the thirties would be about being a grown up, in all senses of that phrase. But I didn’t know what “40? was about. In the past few months I’ve seen a glimpse. For me, forty is about seeing my calling move from student to action phase. I’ll always be a student, I love to learn, but there is a time and place for stepping into our personal power; of claiming our power, our connection with Spirit and publicly proclaiming our calling. Since this wasn’t a traditional four year college experience like I had in my twenties, there is no cap and gown, crossing the stage public proclamation of my new identity. But the change still happened. Back in my teen years I wondered what I would do with my life. A historian, a teacher, politics? And then I ended up in retail management, and then in Human Resources. All very important careers to share with the world. But always I felt unresolved. Until now.

I am a spiritual retreat facilitator and a ceremonial facilitator.