Tag: Writing Retreat

Creativity

Great Cape Escape – Day 6

Post author By Jen Payne
Post date May 6, 2024
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“I have a room all to myself; it is nature.” — Henry David Thoreau

Retracing my steps at Nauset Beach…

Lunch at Coast Guard Beach

Nauset Light

Newcomb Hollow Beach

Driving the loop at Province Lands

A final sunset at Herring Cove

Tags Cape Cod, Great Cape Escape, Henry David Thoreau, National Seashore, Retreat, this writing life, Writing Retreat

Creativity

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.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Enjoyed a Poets in the Park Walk around Blackwater Pond with the National Park Service. This was poet Mary Oliver’s favorite place to contemplate nature and poetry.

This was a long day that included a hike, shopping in Provincetown, Wicked Little Letters, and a late afternoon hike to Highland Light. This is the oldest and tallest lighthouse on Cape Cod.

The view from Highland Light

Sunset at Herring Cove while watching whales breach in Cape Cod Bay

Tags Cape Cod, Great Cape Escape, Mary Oliver, National Seashore, Retreat, this writing life, Writing Retreat

Creativity

Great Cape Escape – Day 4

Post author By Jen Payne
Post date May 4, 2024
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“Hope is radical openness for surprise — for the unimaginable. If that is the attitude with which we look, listen, and open all of our senses, we enter into a meaningful relationship with whatever Life offers us at a given moment.” — Brother David Steindl-Rast

A quiet walk at Head of the Meadow

A good day to write, rest, read. Repeat.

The gift of a rainbow…

And sunset over Provincetown

Tags Brother David Steindl-Rast, Cape Cod, Great Cape Escape, National Seashore, Retreat, this writing life, Writing Retreat

Creativity

Great Cape Escape – Day 3

Full Moon at Head of the Meadow

“I began to make plans for what my future might be—what once felt like a mad dash to the end of a cliff now felt like an interesting path in a beautiful wood that may or may not lead to the top of a mountain. And yes, the chances of my arrival at that destination were uncertain, but oh! What a mountain! And oh! What a view! And what a pleasure it was to keep moving forward.” ― Kelly Barnhill, When Women Were Dragons

Coast Guard Beach, Eastham

Sunset from Head of the Meadow, waiting for the Moon

The Frog Moon rises

Tags Cape Cod, Great Cape Escape, Kelly Barnhill, National Seashore, Retreat, this writing life, When Women Were Dragons, Writing Retreat

Creativity

Great Cape Escape – Day 2

Post author By Jen Payne
Post date May 2, 2024
No Comments on Great Cape Escape – Day 2

“Anytime we approach a state of awe, we are in relationship with divinity. We are awake.” — The Wild Unknown Animal Spirit Book

Sunrise on the first full day

Time and spaces to read, write, and regroup.

Morning walk in Truo, Provincetown in the distance.

Feeling very grateful…

First view of Nauset Beach in Orleans, my favorite beach.

Much later in the day, sunset at Race Point Beach.

Sun sets, moon rises…

Tags Cape Cod, Great Cape Escape, National Seashore, Retreat, The Wild Unknown Animal Spirit Book, this writing life, Writing Retreat

Creativity

Great Cape Escape – Day 1

“Every person needs to take one day away. A day in which one consciously separates the past from the future. Jobs, family, employers, and friends can exist one day without any one of us, and if our egos permit us to confess, they could exist eternally in our absence. Each person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched for. Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us.”  

― Maya Angelou, Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now