Pete Retreat 2009?

All right...today I will not write about Zen. I did not create this blog to proselytize.

A couple years ago I did what I called my 'Pete Retreat'. There was a lot of bad stuff going on in my life at the time, and I just needed to get away from everyone and everything and be alone.

So I rented a cabin in Michigan during the fall (see picture for the setting), and went into the woods all by myself. There was NO ONE around. There was no phone service, no internet, no cell service, nothing. There was a TV in the cabin, but I unplugged it and shoved it in a closet. It quickly dawned on me that I had a whole week to fill and nothing to do. What an amazing feeling! Never happens even on a vacation.

So my pace immediately slowed down; there was no reason to rush anything because I had far too much time. I'd wake up at 6AM (my usual wake-up time!), look out the window, and see deer walking by. I'd hike the woods twice a day, just thinking about whatever popped into my head...or sometimes not thinking at all. I drew, read books I'd been meaning to read, walked on the shores of Lake Michigan - no one in sight - and watched the sun set for an hour.

Before long, I got into a totally different place. I skipped showering one day because the trails were really muddy, so why bother. I didn't shave the entire week, and for one 36 hour period I didn't speak. Think about that. When's the last time you can think of an hour where you didn't speak? Pretty wild.

And it was amazing how easy it is to live without 'stuff' you normally think you can't do without. In that stripped-down kind of existence, I was able to clearly think about all my problems and map out how to deal with them. Everything suddenly seemed so simple and obvious!

Anyway, I changed a lot of stuff in my life as a result. New job, new goals, and I finished writing a cycle of poems I called 'The Ancient Elm' that kind of capsulized the whole experience. I tried to go back the next year, but it wasn't the same somehow. I've thought about doing another Pete Retreat, maybe somewhere else, but perhaps I got what I needed from that experience and it's over.

But each year, I think: do I need a Pete Retreat? Maybe I should try to take it further and actually camp or something? There's something appealing about challenging myself that way because, at heart, I do love my 'stuff'!