WHALE WISDOM AND WONDER AT THE BYRON BAY WRITING RETREAT

Sunrise at Sangsurya!

Q. What happens when you put 20 writers in a beautiful location overlooking breaching whales?

A. You get a whole lot of inspired writing and shared wisdom, that’s what!

From the carpark of our retreat centre, the spectacular Sangsurya in Byron Bay, we overlooked the sea and splashes from the tails of whales with their young ones heading south.

Whales are magical creatures. According to my Animal Dreaming Oracle Cards by Scott Alexander King, whales are the record keepers, the holders of Mother Earth’s sacred records. The whale is a reminder to reconnect with the Earth Mother and to listen deeply into our own hearts to reveal the stories of our spirits and our ancestors. Perfect totem for our writing retreat!

Sangsurya was a maze of rooms, each unique and decorated with loving care and Asian artefacts, all surrounded in lush tropical gardens ablaze with blooms. I even had a bathtub! YAY! Not only that, a mosaic of a mermaid lay beneath me in the water. Happy days!

As we ate our incredible, delicious meals (every meal was a feast) prepared by Ronit, Sam and the team from Open Table we looked out to the sea and watched whales breaching and smacking the water with fins and tails. Then of course we had to stop watching and start writing!

We crammed in as much information as we could into the writing workshops. Workshops covered all the elements of narrative for both memoirists and fiction writers – from writing in scenes to developing a character-driven plot to shaping a premise, structuring for success (the brain twisting workshop!) and pitching to publishers.

And what a conscientious group of writers they were! Everyone turned up to workshops and yoga and even pranayama! How wonderful to have such eager participants.

As an extra bonus, the wonderful Matthew Bergan led a few of the yoga sessions, teaching us all some new moves with laughter in the mix. And Kerstin had us all totally blissed out with her beautiful sound healing treatments with her singing bowls!

Between feasting and writing and chatting we had plenty of spaces to hide out and write when we had time between workshops, Monique’s miraculous bodywork treatments, one on one feedback and more feasting and chatting. New writing friendships were formed, which always makes me happy. Writers need other writers.

Plus, on our last day we danced up a storm with the joy infusion that was Lalita Lakshmi’s fun-filled, dressed up, high energy dance class. What fun! I may have been a little overexcited!

We finished our workshops with our traditional collage activity which I’m glad to say, even the most hesitant enjoyed with gusto.

Kindy photos below.

Don’t you just love those kindy grins 🙂

By the end of the retreat, we’d well and truly bonded as a group, and the goodbyes felt a bit like losing friends. Writing and sharing our stories connects us quickly on writing retreat, because we all share our deepest selves and the long and winding path to completing a book-length work. From YA witch stories, to 1989 HIV-impacted Darlinghurst, to outback orgies and memoirs of recovering ourselves after trauma, a guidebook to aging well, works that incorporated art and stories of our grandmothers, to middle aged romances; we had it all!

Thank you to all the wise and wonderful writers who joined us at this second last of our Transformational Writing Retreats. We are shutting up shop on these collaborative retreats with the talented and lovely Kerstin Pilz next year after Italy.

Retreats are only as good as the people who come along, and this bunch of conscientious, hardworking, fun-loving writers made this a great one. Thank you everyone. Hope to see you again one day, maybe at your book launches!

Next retreat for me is Macleay Island in early November. Exciting! Marg applied for a RADF grant to get me out to their writing community and it worked. Local writing folk on limited incomes are welcome to join us.

Then next year April (9-11) is our Memoir and Life Writing Retreat (best for newbies) and August (6 -8) is our Feedback and Revision/Second Draft Retreat (best for those with a bit of work under their belts or those wanting to plan out a new book).

After packing up on the last morning, Kerstin and I headed to the beach and had a refreshing swim, then went up to the lighthouse to see the view. A beautiful young whale was swimming directly underneath the cliff, so close we saw the glisten of its skin and the glint in its eye as it rose gently to the surface. Must be a good omen, hey?