If you visit the forested area at Bethlehem Retreat Centre you may not see the words on the weathergrams left in the trees at our last poetry circle. The pieces of brown paper bag, the string and the wooden beads may still be there but the words may have been washed into the trees. After all they do for us, that seems like a good thing.

Some of our words had been written the morning of the poetry circle and others were thought up on the spot.

Writing weathergrams and hanging them in the trees was one of our activities at Poetry as a Doorway In . . . and a Welcome Home on April 26th. Our inspiration came from Kim Goldberg who wrote about them in Living Artfully: Reflections from the Far West Coast (The Key Publishing, 2012). Kim and I both have essays in the anthology edited by Anita Sinner and Christine Lowther.

The poetry circle offers some time for reflection with inspiration from several poets. Kim Goldberg is one of them. Another poet to offer inspiration in the form of our theme that day was Patrick Lane. “What else but song” came from his poem “Apples in the Rain.”

What else to draw me through the rain
only to find a child, apples in his hands,
finding what he can of his own way home.

We need to hear the songs of others to find our own song – something the late P.K. Page realized and wrote about in her preface to Hologram (Brick Books, 1994, 2003):  “We have a song – of a kind. But it is not until we have heard many other songs that we are able to put together our own specific song.”

She was referring to poets and came to this realization from a report she read about an ornithologist who raised songbirds in isolation in an attempt to understand how they learned to sing.

“He then introduced them to the songs of a variety of birds not of their species and discovered they chose the notes and cadences that, combined with their own attempts completed their species song. ‘Of course?’ I thought, ‘ that is what poets do.”

Another poem we had a look at that day was “Build by Flying” by Li-Young Lee who was born in Jakarta, Indonesia to Chinese parents and now lives in Chicago, Illinois.

I lean on a song.
I follow a story.

The words of these poems and others inspired our own words which we shared in our intimate circle.  We engaged in the ancient practice of lectio divina or “sacred reading,” reading the poem “Build by Flying” four times.  The four primary movements of lectio divina are Read (lectio); Reflect (meditation); Respond (oratio); and Rest (contemplation).

The practice offers an opportunity to feel with the wisdom of the heart and to savor a word or phrase allowing it to unfold within you. (I’ve paraphrased Christine Valters Paintner who wrote The Artist’s Rule: Nurturing Your Creative Soul with Monastic Wisdom, Sorin Books, 2011).

A walk around the labyrinth has been part of the circles I’ve been leading at Bethlehem Centre. As Lauren Artress wrote:  [The labyrinth] is a container for the creative imagination to align with our heart’s desire, it is a place where we can profoundly, yet playfully, experience our soul’s longing and intention. (Walking a Sacred Path, Riverhead Books, 1995, 2006)

The labyrinth at Bethlehem Centre is the realization and dream of Sr Jill Aigner, director of the centre from 1986 to 2003. It was constructed by staff and friends of the centre and is open for use by all who care to make this spiritual journey.

The Bethlehem labyrinth was built on the pattern of the classical eleven-circuit labyrinth at Chartres Cathedral in France. The pathway has been constructed so that people who have difficulty walking or are in a wheelchair can make the journey.

We also visited the poetry bazaar which is an array of brightly coloured poems from which to choose. You don’t know what poem you’ve chosen until you turn over the page you were drawn to. Then you get to see what poem is offering you some special wisdom right now. The poem could continue to be your guide for awhile.

The day is replenishing and the pace is expansive rather than rushed. The poetry circle offers a chance to connect to ourselves and others through poetry. The setting is ideal and within the rhythm of a full day, we have the opportunity to meander.

The next Poetry as a Doorway In Circle is on Friday, May 30^th with the theme of Feast On Your Life as inspired by Derek Walcott’s poem, “Love After Love.”   Lunch is included with the $85 fee. Visit www.bethlehemretreatcentre.com to register online or call 250-754-3254 and talk to Chrissandra. This will be the last poetry circle until Fall 2014.