Artists’ Contemplative Retreat, Day 4, 13 June 2016, by Lisa Zuercher
I got up before the crow cawed this morning. I found my sleep in the night full of words, thoughts and musings. The night previous, I sat up in bed writing the draft of my day three post and my intention was to get up early, type it up, copy to the blog, resize pictures, upload, press send and voila. Think again, lovelies, think again.
I go out of bed around 4:45am. I just couldn’t contain my excitement. I was exuberant to greet this day with an explosion of love and wonder. Today would be day one for sending my Daily Thought to my subscriber list, along with publishing the second blog post. First I needed to BE in nature, the place where I meet God the most.
As I am getting ready the crow makes a half-arsed attempt to caw and I giggled because he probably realized that I beat him to the punch. His totem energy from the preceding day was teaching me, transformation was occurring. And the squirrel totem energy of perseverance and playfulness was silently finding its way to my healing center. This was important for me to realize because I knew I was still a bit anxious about the vulnerability involved in sending my voice into the land of the web, into the internet chatter space that I still didn’t comprehend, and into people’s email boxes.
Geese Among Clouds, Photo credit, Lisa Zuercher, 2016
So out I go, around 5:40am, and the first thing I notice is the intrinsically fresh and crisp attributes of the air. I inhaled deeply and thanked God for this gift. A few steps into the walk I notice the cloud formations. The sun hadn’t yet burned the grayish tinge off these delectable goodies in the sky and the contrast of gray and white against the azure blue sky caused my heart to skip a beat. I felt like I was five years old again and running down the wooden stairs in our family home on Christmas morning to see what Santa left under the tree.
Out came my phone and I began taking picture after picture. Then I began scurrying around the property, like a squirrel looking for buried nuts, chasing the clouds so I wouldn’t miss a good shot. I put on quite a performance. As a matter of fact I don’t recall seeing any squirrels this morning. I bet they were all perched around the perimeter watching the strange human running after clouds. My breath taken away, each cloud a gift to my soul.
After an hour or so, I headed to the work room. I turned on my computer, took out my notes and the first order of the creative process was to publish my first Daily Thought through MailChimp (the mailing list service I signed up to use). I logged in, replicated a test campaign so I wouldn’t have to create the entire mailing from scratch, and, oddly enough, the replication didn’t work correctly. The picture was giving me issues. It wasn’t transferring. After a few attempts, a low-grade frustration building and my repeating the word perseverance over and over in my head, I decided to forge ahead, find a new picture, resize it and upload to the template. All systems were now ready. I took a very deep breath and pressed send. Daily Thought number one was on its way to the mail boxes of all those signed up. I swear I felt like I just gave birth.
Breakfast was the next charge of the day and then back to the work room to post day three blog of the retreat journey. What should have taken thirty minutes or less took five hours. Five freaking hours.
First was transcribing notes. No problem. Second was choosing pictures to go with the post. No problem. Third, resizing photos. Problem. Ugh. The trick, I am learning, is to reduce the pixel size of each photo so that the pictures don’t impede the opening of the web pages. Okay, I get that, but why was I having so much difficulty resizing. I even signed up for a Canva.com account and realized rather quickly that I was bringing upon myself more torturous learnings. Canva wouldn’t allow me to upload the two pictures I wanted to use. I abandon that rather quickly.
At lunch time Sr. Katie suggests a Microsoft photo program that I happened to have on my computer. I took yet another deep breath, uploaded the pictures, and resized them. Was this a miracle or what?
What came next was the “I want to throw my computer out the window” episode of the “Lisa and the Blog Entry” reality show. I copy and paste my content into notepad so all formatting is stripped from the piece. For those not aware of this, as I wasn’t when I started, formatting from one program will most probably be misread in another program so best so strip the formats. Okay, that’s done. Now it’s time to upload the photos. Great. No problem. Wonderful. Next, position the pictures. It doesn’t work. Why can’t I get these pictures positioned correctly? Then the page would not save. I had to delete and start again. Over and over and over again I tried. When does perseverance turn into a complete waste of one’s time? Seriously, when?
Now at the 4.5 hour mark, surprised that I have any hair left on my head at all, I decide to reach out to the Squarespace help line. I send them an instant message and in about two seconds I receive a response letting me know it will be a moment before someone is able to assist. A moment goes by and I receive a ping on my computer. It’s Jamie M from Squarespace. He gets into my account, makes a video demonstrating picture placement using my blog post, sends me the link and within 5 minutes I am watching a video with my blog and uploaded photo as the example. Wow. Another 3 minutes later I upload the second picture, positioned it and the post was ready. Submit button pressed. The post now living and breathing in internet land. Lesson – set a certain time to muddle through, know your limitations, and then reach out and ask for help. As a treat and rejuvenation I strolled outside and found a spot for myself.
Sitting in the sun overlooking the Hudson I found my soul settle into its own rhythm. The rhythm of God as he works within me in varied ways. The sunshine providing much needed vitamin D and warmth to my skin. The gentle breeze caressing my cheeks and I could hear the birds saying, “I love you.” I was being tended to. The serenity blanketing my being brought a HUGE smile to my face, to my soul, to my spirit. I fell in love again at this very moment – in love with all that is good, and pure, and sweet, and caring, and honest, and with all that sings sweetly to me as I sit and wait in the silence with all creation.
Everyone in the group seems to be gliding into a rhythm. Painters creating life on paper, sculptors molding clay to life, photographers capturing life in a snapshot, and writers bringing words to life and life to words on paper. Ah, the joy of this time away, in community, in communion with creatives creating.
Now around 10pm and before settling in for the evening I had one last thing to do; I had to gaze at the brilliant moon. I was taken aback. The beauty. The strength. The serenity. The healing. This beautiful moon, in all her radiance, completed my day and blessed with a deep inner peace. Ah the serene exhale, our breaths meeting in the middle and moon-love radiating brightly.
Moon over Mariandale. Photo credit, Lisa Zuercher, 2016.
So through the angst of technology foibles that put me way behind my goals for the day (and week for that matter) I met God right where I was. In the midst of challenges I honored my need to commune with the nature that soothes me, and quieted myself enough to hear the gentle echo of His love song to me. Everything is alright.