FJV Emily Comerford (Anchorage, AK ’08-09) reflects on the recent weekend spent reconnecting with former volunteers on retreat:
I am so grateful for having attended the FJV retreat at Miracle Ranch in Port Orchard, WA. Our facilitator, Marilyn Nash, did a phenomenal job of engaging the group with the theme of “Transitions and Transformations.” Through poetry, movement, journaling, and collaging, we reflected on our own unique journeys, our past experiences, and our “next steps.” It was helpful to make the distinction between “change” and “transition,” and to recognize the huge amount of potential present in the latter. Marilyn has a remarkable gift of holding a space and inviting shy souls (such as my own) to enliven. It was such a restorative weekend and wonderful opportunity to connect with former volunteers!
I came across this T.S. Elliot poem which I found to be a poetic description of the neutral zone we often find ourselves in between transitions:
I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
~ T.S. Eliot ~
