Startlement Retreat Recap
Our Startlement retreat at the end of May actually did turn out to be the definition of the mysterious word: the state of being strongly impressed by something unexpected. It can be synonymous with awe.
This was our first retreat at Kona Kona Resort in Laporte, MN and it won’t be our last. We had SUCH a lovely time occupying this scenic “point of pines” on Kabekona Lake. Thank you Anna and Roy for making us feel so comfortable and at-home.
The bird symphony during outdoor yoga classes alone was enough for a standing ovation. Encor!
Always a delight! We kicked off the retreat with a mindful mocktail bar and fresh cold-pressed organic juice with Jami Nelson. She owns The Just Juice Co. in Nisswa, MN. She creates a really fun introductory experience upon arrival.
We loved the ample opportunities to ogle as the sunrises and sunsets. Our first night brought a particularly stunning sunset that felt like it kept expanding and going, going, going. It’s one of those nights that brings you to stillness, with your jaw dropped, unable to grasp the beauty before you.
Each day, we enjoyed the sauna famously from the movie Grumpy Old Men. Not kidding! Also the woodfired hot tub with the view of the trees and the lake. Dang. So good.
The ample opportunities for quiet beach walks, cool water swimming, loon appreciation sessions, reading, and paddles on crystal clear Kabekona Lake. Nature relaxation was abundant.
Not to the mention our accommodations were so cute, comfortable, and enticing. To lounge in the living room, or bedrooms overlooking the lake just steps from the door, was decadent. Sitting in a chair outside, on the beach, or on the dock was also alluring.
We incorporated poems from Ada Limon’s Startlement throughout the weekend. Yoga sessions, a book club conversation that we endearingly named “dock talks” as we either floated on paddle boards, relaxed on the docks, or in a chair on the beach. We created another science board project, inspired by Limon’s poem “Calling Things What They Are”. We drew pictures, taped bird cards, and down/dead nature items, and labeled them. A wonderful practice in nature mindfulness, and added depth to understanding the details of who we are sharing this world with.
Calling Things What They Are
BY ADA LIMÓN
I pass the feeder and yell, Grackle party! And then an hour later I yell, Mourning dove afterparty! (I call the feeder the party and the seed on the ground the afterparty.) I am getting so good at watching that I’ve even dug out the binoculars an old poet gave me back when I was young and heading to the Cape with so much future ahead of me it was like my own ocean.Tufted titmouse! I yell, and Lucas laughs and says, Thought so. But he is humoring me; he didn’t think so at all. My father does this same thing. Shouts out at the feeder announcing the party attendees. He throws out a whole peanut or two to the Stellar’s jay who visits on a low oak branch in the morning. To think there was a time I thought birds were kind of boring. Brown bird. Gray bird. Black bird. Blah blah blah bird. Then, I started to learn their names by the ocean, and the person I was dating said, That’s the problem with you, Limón, you’re all fauna and no flora. And I began to learn the names of trees. I like to call things as they are. Before, the only thing I was interested in was love, how it grips you, how it terrifies you, how it annihilates and resuscitates you. I didn’t know then that it wasn’t even love that I was interested in, but my own suffering. I thought suffering kept things interesting. How funny that I called it love and the whole time it was pain.
Can I get a clap for the food? Sarah Elaine Events left us giddy at her delectable creations. The lemon custard dessert lives rent free in my head.
On Saturday morning we giggled about a “group field trip” to Itasca State Park. Candace, Stacy, and I were extra excited about this excursion. Shout out to Candace and Stacy (real quick) for being all around lovely to work with! Candace Henry treated us to massage appointments and a yoga class. She owns Exhale Massage & Wellness in Park Rapids, MN. Stacy Nightwine co-led the retreat with me, and guided us through lakeside yoga sessions. Stacy teaches yoga in Two Harbors, MN - typically at Lagom and Castle Danger Brewery. As always, we had a great time working and playing together.
We packed our backpacks and brought our inner child out as we marveled at the Mississippi Headwaters, spring flowers (trillium, yellow lady slippers, wild marigolds) and fun with SWIMMING at this iconic place in Minnesota. Many of us haven’t been to this monumental spot since childhood, or maybe it was the very first time?!
Being silly is always a good idea. We made a human pyramid. We dawned towel “capes” at the Headwaters, and Itasca State Park in honor of Ada Limon’s poem: “Wonder Woman”.
Her poem is about the opposite end of the Mississippi from where we are at. BUT WOW we had a great time with the display at the visitor center that you can pour water into to demonstrate the journey down to the Gulf. Did you know a rain drop of water at the Headwaters will make it down to the Gulf of Mexico in 90 days?!
Wonder Woman
by Ada Limon
Standing at the swell of the muddy Mississippi
after the Urgent Care doctor had just said, Well,
sometimes shit happens, I fell good and hard
for New Orleans all over again. Pain pills swirling
in the purse along with a spell for later. It’s taken
a while for me to admit, I am in a raging battle
with my body, a spinal column thirty-five degrees
bent, vertigo that comes and goes like a DC Comics
villain nobody can kill. Invisible pain is both
a blessing and a curse. You always look so happy,
said a stranger once as I shifted to my good side
grinning. But that day, alone on the riverbank,
brass blaring from the Steamboat Natchez,
out of the corner of my eye, a girl, maybe half my age,
is dressed, for no apparent reason, as Wonder Woman.
She struts by in all her strength and glory, invincible,
eternal, and when I stand to clap (because who wouldn’t),
she bows and poses like she knew I needed the myth,
—a woman, by a river, indestructible
On our last evening, we gathered for a beautiful campfire on the very point of the peninsula. We laughed until we cried. Thanks to a “witch shit up” pin and handknitted witch hat, stories of giant puppets, famous encounters, a silly Scandinavian campfire song, break dancing, clogging, and hidden talents.
Medicine. for. the. soul.
The next morning, we woke up for our last moments in the sweet cabins at Kona Kona. My bed was so comfortable, from the mattress to the bedding and pillows. PLUS sleeping with the windows open and a view of the lake and sunrise when I opened my eyes? Unbeatable. These cabins are a dream.
Our yoga class and closing circle brought poetry, laughter, memories, and warmth. Thank you ladies so much for a truly wonderful weekend spent together. I look forward to gathering with you again. Until then, I’ll share one more Ada Limon favorite of mine:
Dandelion Insomnia
by Ada Limon
The big-ass bees are back, tipsy, sun drunk
and heavy with thick knitted leg warmers
of pollen. I was up all night again so today’s
yellow hours seem strange and hallucinogenic.
The neighborhood is lousy with mowers, crazy
dogs, and people mending what winter ruined.
What I can’t get over is something simple, easy:
How could a dandelion seed head seemingly
grow overnight? A neighbor mows the lawn
and bam, the next morning, there’s a hundred
dandelion seed heads straight as arrows
and proud as cats high above any green blade
of manicured grass. It must bug some folks,
a flower so tricky it can reproduce asexually,
making perfect identical selves, bam, another me
bam, another me. I can’t help it–I root
for that persecuted rosette so hyper in its
own making it seems to devour the land.
Even its name, translated from the French,
dent de lion, means lion’s tooth. It’s vicious,
made for a time that requires tenacity, a way
of remaking the toughest self while everyone
else is asleep.
