a circle of sisterhood

 

this past weekend i had the pleasure and privilege of being surrounded by my sisters in faith. we traveled to sandy cove ministries in northeast, maryland and i excitedly looked forward to retreating from the monotony of the everyday... responsibilities and engagements.

the focus of our retreat was to rediscover our dreams and our long lost plans. like little girls, literally, we crafted... cutting out pictures from magazines and creating vision boards. we examined the negative scripts we mentally repeat, the negative people in our lives and we assembled forward plans to aspire.

i awoke to remarkable sunrises and basked in break-taking sunsets... i sat quietly by the water just breathing and thinking and being... i was spoiled beyond belief by the freedom to just relax...

we sat in circles and shared our stories... stories of  sadness and triumph.  we cried... we released... we got angry... we prayed... we laughed and as the weekend ended we rejoiced.

i remember a time when my women friendships were few... when i had more men as friends than women... when my thinking was that women were catty and men were simply cool... and while some women are catty, my circle of friends is more feminine than masculine and i love it.

this past weekend we were both inspired and inspiring... another group from another church heard our joyous resounding and came over to witness. when they saw us women, old and young, clapping and singing, crying and dancing, they gave us their contact information and told us to notify them anytime we did anything because they wanted to be part of the number... that has been one of our visions... to touch women globally.

last summer i traveled to visit my friend and we came upon a circle of women. he said something like hmmm, that doesn't look good, must be some man-bashing taking place in that circle and i responded telling him that women, when gathered in circles, aren't even thinking about men! it is about sharing, growing, healing...

over the weekend i grew a little and some of my wounds were healed. i received clarity and my dreams of writing and publishing were reawakened. 5 years ago i earned my master's degree and turned 30 and i felt like i had done everything i was supposed to do, i felt complete. but in these past 5 years i've been feeling a need to do something new... and now my wheels are in motion to do just that...