The food here is fantastic (didn’t I say that in the last post?) and last night Cindy outdid herself with herbed soup, pasta with garlic, mixed green salad with homemade dressing and these little breaded eggplant rolls stuffed with cream cheese and ricotta that were so delicious of course I had to have seconds. And everything is vegetarian, which is such a blessing when there are so many of these kind of workshops or retreats where I’m reduced to eating lettuce, tomato and cheese sandwiches.

Before each meal all the fellows (that’s the term for the artists here, male or female) all hang out eating hors d’oeuvres and talking about our projects, our day and anything that happens to come up. Last night the discussion included Rilke’s poems, if the artist can ever make art without imprinting his/her mood or intention into the art, the thousands of swarming lady bugs (most of which were laying dead on the windowsills, floor and tables all over the enclosed porch), and about the bear hunters who might have been out that day treeing a bear.

Janet, Kathy and Liza

Dick and Norma

Fereydoon & James

I slept at the cabin last night, watched a couple of my movies from The Spiritual Cinema Circle, locked all the doors and turned on the night light so I could find my way to the bathroom in the middle of the night. I didn’t sleep particularly well, but that’s not news these days. I loved the quiet and felt very warm and secure in this little cabin. In the morning the light coming through the mist onto the leaves was exquisite and a good omen for a creative and productive day.

In the morning I read and wrote for a couple of hours then organized my printed essays to prepare for the afternoon when Liza came over and we put them up on the white board into preliminary categories with poems to go with them. Tomorrow I’m going through quotes I have saved over the years to match a quote with each piece. This is all such a great process and we were so stoked by the end just looking at them all hanging there–actual manifestation of a budding manuscript.