For many of us, the start of a new year means setting goals and deciding what we want to accomplish in the next twelve months. But after a year like 2020, we need to pause, consider ways to plan for our future without carrying the stress of the past or the fear of another year of unknowns. At RWC, we believe in goals and moving forward intentionally with our writing, but we also believe it may be time to turn “goal setting” on its head. Instead of thinking “go big or go home,” we’re thinking go small, go deep, and understand the home inside yourself.
In our 2021 Goals Retreat, the emphasis will still be about setting goals, but we’ll learn new ways to do it—kinder ways, with more space and grace. We’re going to “tend” the new year like we’d nurture something we love. We’re going to decide where we’d like to go by first acknowledging where we are now. We’ll grant ourselves permission to move past the disorder of 2020, not by demanding order, but by gently reordering the things that are meaningful in our lives, the things we want to keep. Using meditation, breathing exercises, the experience of labyrinths, writing prompts, tools for goal-setting, and perhaps most important, quiet time for personal reflection, this retreat is offered as a respite and balm, a chance to think ahead without distractions into the new year’s beautiful potential.
Join RWC director, Sandy Coomer for a weekend of discovery as we set goals that honor both the head and the heart.
Date: Friday, January 1 to Sunday, January 3, 2021
Cost: $400.00 (tax included) We will not collect payment until closer to the retreat date.
Includes: 2 nights in a private bedroom/bathroom suite, access to RWC common areas, gardens, and hiking trails, 5 meals with wine at dinner, 4 workshops, special gifts, community with other writers, and tools to explore and celebrate the potential waiting for us in 2021.
Thoughts about Health and Safety: Depending on the status of the pandemic, we will implement careful procedures with cleaning, face coverings, and social distancing. RWC is large enough that we can spread out and safely hold this retreat. Please read our Covid policies and precautions for more information.
Tentative Schedule:
Friday
4:00 to 6:00 pm – Check-in / settle in
6:00 p.m. – Dinner and Hellos
7:00 p.m. – Introductions, Overview of Retreat, First Workshop
9:00 p.m. – Free time / Bedtime
Saturday
6:30 a.m. – Coffee Ready!
7:00 a.m. – Breakfast is available. Come anytime you’re ready.
8:30 a.m. – Workshop
10:00 a.m. – Free Time for Writing / Exploring / Personal Reflection
12:00 p.m. – Lunch
1:00 p.m. – Free Time for Writing / Exploring / Personal Reflection
6:00 p.m. – Dinner
7:00 p.m. – Workshop
8:30 p.m. – Reading – Share your Writing (Sharing is optional; however, we ask that you attend whether you read or not, in order to support other writers.)
10:00 p.m. – Free Time / Bedtime
Sunday
6:30 a.m. – Coffee Ready
7:00 a.m. – Breakfast is available. Come anytime you’re ready
8:30 a.m. – Workshop
10:00 a.m. – Free Time for Writing / Exploring / Personal Reflection
11:00 p.m. – Check-out and Goodbye
Facilitators:
Sandy Coomer is a poet, artist, Ironman triathlete, and social entrepreneur from Nashville, TN. Over 150 pieces of Sandy’s art have been published in print and online journals and she has been featured in local art shows and exhibits. Her poetry has been published in numerous journals and she is the author of three poetry chapbooks and a full-length collection, Available Light (Iris Press). Another full-length collection, The Broken Places, is forthcoming from Saddle Road Press in fall 2021. She is a multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee and her poem, “Calligraphy” was a 2019 Best of the Net finalist. Sandy is a past poetry mentor in the AWP Writer to Writer Mentorship Program and the founding editor of the online poetry journal Rockvale Review.
Sandy cohosts Black Dog Poetry Open Mic and Rockvale Poetry Book Club and is the founder and director of Rockvale Writers’ Colony in College Grove, TN, a not-for-profit organization that exists to support and educate writers of all genres and backgrounds. She is a self-professed “idea” person, as well as a teacher, a dreamer, and an explorer. Her favorite word is “believe.” Learn more about Sandy at www.sandycoomer.com.
Sonia Fernández LeBlanc (she/her) is a Storyteller. A Writer. Self-Directed Education Advocate. A Community Builder. A Systems Disruptor/Re-Creator with a penchant for the mystical. I’m on a journey of radical self and soul sovereignty and I serve as guide for those who feel called to journey with me.
Through my business, Revolutions Imaginarium, I offer courses, one-on-one connections, writings, and a podcast focused on knowing, living, telling, and honoring our own stories. These stories are curative elixirs that can offer us personal and ancestral healing within. When we truly know ourselves and our stories, we begin to transform into the matriarchal elders that our vastly changing society needs and deserves. We are the bridge generations who will hold space for and support our living and future descendants at the end of an era we neither ushered forth nor will be able to rectify.
I dabble in ancestry, mythology, and archetypal tarot… am a devoted mama to my two human loves, a trio of fur loves, and a jungle of plant loves… am a pretty impressive spouse to the coolest human I know, a damn good friend from what I have been told by those who call me so, and I throw one hell of a dinner party outside pandemic times. Cheers!