News from Jules | 07.09.2024 | Let it Flow

I knew what I had to do. Let it flow. Then let it go.

“May I pull this rug out from under you?,” she quietly asked. At first, I looked down at my bare feet standing in the middle of the black mat and then I slowly looked over my right shoulder at the woman in the hallway holding the edge of the mat in the nearly silent lodge before I understood what she had said.

Oh, yes, I quietly answered and then got out of the way.

As I smiled back at the woman, I chuckled on the inside at the irony of the moment. Well at least she asked, I thought.

It was just two days after I got the call which sent me reeling. I was still stunned and out of it. Exactly why I retreated there to Breitenbush Hot Springs Retreat and Conference Center near Detroit, Ore. “A place to bring life into balance,” rightfully claims their website.

That Monday, two weeks ago, the owner at my new job called to inform me that I would not continue working there past my initial month, she’d give me severance pay and wished me luck.

Surprise amplifies whatever feeling comes next whether that’s excitement, delight, hurt, or sadness, I remember hearing Brené Brown explain in Chapter 4, “Places We Go When it’s Beyond Us: Awe, Wonder, Confusion, Curiosity, Interest, Surprise” in the audiobook of Atlas of the Heart, her exploration of eighty-seven emotions and experiences that define what it means to be human.

This surprise was just as sudden and jarring as my previous job losses, but the situation felt so different. “Everything about it felt so right. A place where I belong, as myself. I can totally see myself working here for awhile,” I wrote in my journal the first day I met the team and visited the small, local tea company.

On the phone, I was speechless. I slowly realized that meant I wasn’t going to my shifts that week, that I was losing a third of my income, and what felt like an anchor was swiftly pulled aboard.

Why? I asked.

What she said: The team thinks you’re not a culture fit.

What I heard: You’re not one of us. You don’t fit in. You’re different. And we don’t want you.

Oh, that deepest wound of feeling rejected for being human. That our unique, individual self doesn’t fit—in a workplace or in our family or with a romantic partner or in friendship—and is disruptive. And how the salt of insecurity stings.

Not only am I enough but will I have enough money to pay rent?

That is the deep well where the tears came from, spilling over from full buckets after I hung up the phone. I knew I was overreacting. I knew it was just a part-time job for 12 hours a week that I had only done for a month. But what I felt from my root chakra all the way up through my being was existential stress.

The tears continued to seep out of me that evening during a Healing Flow yoga class with a close friend, and then during dinner and beers with another close friend. I didn’t sleep that night at all.

I knew what I had to do. Let it flow. Steep in all the hurt, sadness, and fear that was rising to the surface. Then let it go.

On my way out of town, I stopped by REI to try to pick up shifts to replace the ones I had lost and to change my availability in the coming weeks before taking the week off for my family reunion at the end of July. Next, I stopped at Suttle Lake, just 15 minutes west of Sisters, Ore., to join some REI friends for standup paddleboarding, swimming, and soft serve ice cream, before I continued over the mountain pass on Highway 20 that I had crossed so many times on recent adventures and on down to Detroit Lake to camp overnight before finally reaching my destination the next morning—a personal retreat at Breitenbush Hot Springs 10 miles out of town via Forest Service roads.

It still takes my breath away to drive through the town of Detroit perched at the northeast edge of the horseshoe-shaped lake. There one day, gone the next, now back once again.

The lake was so big and blue, the forest so lush and green, and everything frosted with snow even though it was nearly the spring solstice the first time I came to Breitenbush in March 2019. I attended a Nourishing Relationships Yoga Retreat that Emily Light hosted with “17 delightful humans, for two days, exploring the Brahma Viharas—the Buddhist and Yogic teachings of loving-kindness, compassion, appreciative joy and equanimity.”

We stayed in the grove of tiny old wooden cabins heated by the thermal hot springs, walked along narrow paths through thick forest to the lodge, soaking pools and yurt for our yoga and Metta mediations sessions—all nestled alongside Breitenbush River that feeds into Detroit Lake.

The following summer when I drove through Detroit on my way back to Portland from camping in Central Oregon late Friday night of Labor Day weekend in 2020, the town was still there. By Monday, it was gone. The town (Population: 203) was leveled by the Beachie Creek, Lionshead, and P-515 wildfires ignited by lightning that burned for two months across nearly 400,000 acres.

The grounds of the retreat center looked like the town when I returned to Breitenbush in April 2022 with one of my best friends on our “Best of Oregon” tour before I departed to work at the Omega Institute, a retreat center in upstate New York, for the summer.

Stark skeleton trees jutting out of the blackened earth in vast open spaces that used to be filled with dwellings that were incinerated by 80-100 mile per hour winds carrying fire from cabin to cabin. All of the cabins and bathhouses, the massage house and the sanctuary were gone. The black roots of charred trees reached right up to the stone perimeters of the soaking pools in the meadow.

Now, in 2024, the town is almost rebuilt. And, so is the retreat center.

As I walked the trail from the welcome center and parking lot down to the lodge, I noticed all of the new dwellings, bath houses, and camping spots beside a grassy meadow that used to be hidden inside the forest.

I came across the same wooden sign leading to “The Inner Path” with its invitation to witness—undamaged so apparently saved from the fire—back in its spot at the center of the grounds, now dark and rich with the charred remains of the forest.

After entering the quiet lodge, I slipped off my Birkenstock sandals and tucked them into the rows of shoes before drifting toward the gift shop. In the hallway, a big blue book on the top bookshelf caught my eye. People, written and illustrated by children’s book author Peter Spier in 1989. I hadn’t seen it in decades, but I knew this book from my childhood.

“We all know there are lots and lots of people in the world…there are now over four billion human beings on earth…by the year 2000 there will be 6 billion people on earth.”

“Each and every one of us different from all the others. Each one a unique individual in his or her own right.”

“But imagine how dreadfully dull this world of ours would be if everybody would look, think, eat, dress, and act the same! Now, isn’t it wonderful that each and every one of us is unlike any other?”

I had just stopped to look at the book when she asked to pull the rug out from under me. As if the Universe was speaking directly to me. A slight disruption to get my attention, question my reality and reorient my beliefs. As I smiled back at the woman, I chuckled on the inside at the irony of the moment.

Oh, yes, I quietly answered and then got out of the way.

I started at the Labrinyth down by the rushing river. Walking the winding path, like I had in so many other sacred places, generated the centripetal forces to spin me back into my own center. Instead of retracing my steps to the beginning per usual, this time I stepped out from the middle. That was where I wanted to be for the day—resting at my core.

So, I filled a clawfooted bathtub on the wooden walkways over the steaming stream where the mineral water is the strongest, took everything off and for the next hour, I let it flow.

I dropped the bucket to the bottom of that deep well, hoisted it up, and poured out all of those tears into the tub. I steeped in all the hurt of not belonging, the sadness of unexpected loss, and the fear of financial insecurity that rose to the surface, just like I’ve been practicing at home with my Spiritual Director.

And then I let it go.

One of the orange dragonflies buzzing around the reedy stream came to rest on the wooden post next to me. I wondered what advice she might have for my situation—this highly adaptable being in one of the oldest lineages inhabiting Earth for the past 300,000 years, 100,000 years before the dinosaurs.

What she said: Her tail pulsed, her head nodded.

What I heard: Don’t dwell in the past. Don’t predict the future. Just be present.

See photos from my day at Breitenbush on Instagram.

After putting my bedded necklace, earrings and blue dress back on, I slipped into my Birkenstocks and I walked back up to the lodge to dish up from the vegan buffet. Still relishing in my inner world, I sat by myself at a picnic table on the front deck, railings lined with towels drying in the mid-day sunshine, and admired the land as I ate.

I walked to the silent pool at the farthest end of the meadow with its special memories of being nude in public for the first time under the protection of the dark night sky before sunrise in 2019. Just like the funny moment with the rug earlier, that time I slipped in the pool and accidentally grabbed someone’s thigh, blurting out: “Not a rock!” The whole pool giggled out loud and the person I touched—who was luckily from the same retreat—said, “Hi Jules.”

This time I laid back in the searingly hot water by the bright light of afternoon and marveled at how different every body is. Each one a unique individual in his or her own right. Not only by the nature of their form but its wear and tear over one’s lifespan. For instance, there was a big tree tattoo growing up one back and a huge scar across another’s hip flexor.

I forgot my towel on the railing of the lodge at lunch, so I walked out of the silent pool and through the meadow to the other pool in my birthday suit. Knowing that we’re all made up of the same parts but different versions, it felt most natural to shed any separation between me and the world.

After soaking in the meadow pools and drying in the sun, I meandered down the path to the sauna to sweat out anything I had drawn up from the deep well and hadn’t cried out yet.

After a final cold plunge, I headed toward the river and back to the Labyrinth. Now filled with “joy, that swirl of deep spiritual connection, pleasure and appreciation” described in Chapter 11 of Atlas of the Heart, I stepped right back into the center.

I felt ready to return home, be present, and see what different path lay ahead.

May you let it flow this week.

Love,

Jules

*P.S. Bonus: While researching this newsletter, I checked the facilitator Emily Light’s website to find the name of my first retreat at Breitenbush. I came across a blog post she wrote about our retreat in the spring of 2019 called “Transforming Anxiety,” which reminded me how transformative our conversations can be, whether we know it or not. Here’s an excerpt:

“I just finished leading the Nourishing Relationships Yoga Retreat at Breitenbush Hot Springs. It was magical. Also, it was challenging. And, at times, I found myself overwhelmed by my inner critic.

During the last dinner on retreat, I was visiting with a friend, Jules. She asked how I was feeling. My first impulse was to share the difficulty of my experience. This was followed by the need to exhibit the “got-it-all-together/everything’s good,” retreat-leader image. Once I checked the latter, fear-based reaction, I decided to share my genuine experience.

Jules listened sweetly, asking questions that helped me to dig more deeply into my experience. She didn’t offer any suggestions or remedies, yet, after that conversation, everything shifted.

When I’m feeling bogged down with a critical inner narrative, it’s helpful for me to try to shift my perspective in some way. The conversation with Jules was the catalyst in this circumstance. It allowed me to transform my nervous system [reaction to stimulation] from anxious excitement into inspired excitement.

Leading retreats and workshops and being a student in them myself is such potent medicine. I feel grateful for the support of my community in this process. During the closing circle in this retreat, I shared some of what I just shared with you… the inner critic, the conversation, and the transformation. It was liberating and healing, and I wouldn’t have had that experience without everyone who was there. Sangha/community is everything. When we allow ourselves to be held in those moments of darkness, we’re reminded that we’re not alone and that we’re stronger than we think we are.”