Sunday, May 3, 2009

April 13 ~ Retreat Full Day One

I was up early to complete my meditation & yoga before readying the rooftop for the Retreat Early Morning Yoga. The sunrise was quiet, gentle as we completed the "Sun Salute" with deep breathing and dedication to the total newness of this experience. A GOOD day is born!Once downstairs, we have an hour to conjure up coffee, tea and some favorite shape of breakfast. Several arrive late for yoga, confused by their condo clocks that had not been turned ahead to the Daylight Saving Time, now in effect. But we giggle over food and position around the big dining room table for the coming presentations.

Damaris will be beginning the mornings (while we are still hopefully, in the left side of our sleepy brains) with a sampling of Mandala information and exercises. Following a brief history of Mandalas, she leads us through a Maori Mandala. Quite fascinating, seeing how, when given the exact same instructions, everyone creates a VERY different image.

I take over next, briefly going over the "whys" and "what" of journaling and then move into a quick tour thru drawing basics, perspective, and color wheels. As you can see from my journal page, we all did a simple watercolor color wheel. Also, to give a demo of how watercolor frisket works, I head up to the rooftop patio to sketch the "banana slug" yellow Menorca Condo roofline, just across from us. Everyone else breaks off to work on their own sketches and reheat some of Maria delicious left-overs from last night's "Welcome Dinner", for lunch. I travel around answering questions and adding suggestions where needed. All participants worked with such dedication, it was inspiring.

Following the break, we meet back at the big dining room table for more demos and around 5:30 we gather ourselves for a long leisurely walk all the way down the beach, crossing over the lagoon bridge to enjoy dinner at "Playa Real". As we cross the bridge, we pause to take photos of the Azaleas now in full bloom and capture a beautiful Mexico family, taking photos of their 'grama' too.

After a playful dinner, we treck back to the condo in preparation of our evening "Talking Stick" time. Tonight is Damaris turn to relate her experiences around how her life has affected her creative process. We are finding what a treasure it is to learn more intimately about one another, seeing the amazing journeys we all have taken to get us to where we are now.

It's late when we break up, heading to our respective beds with visions of another day of artist's play dancing in our heads.




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