Celebrating Her Spirit

I’m sitting in the La Fonda Hotel in Santa Fe with my bags packed, ready to get up early in the morning and head home to Iowa. I’ve been here for more than a week, just across the street from the holiday lights of Santa Fe’s historic plaza, where we’ve had a Story Summit women’s writing retreat called Her Spirit.

With almost 100 faculty and participants, this retreat went straight to the heart of the holidays. Not because the city is lit up with strings of lights and luminarias, but because we were celebrating the light within each of the women who attended.

I would say that most, if not all, writers feel inadequate and insecure about their craft, just as we all do about our lives, our work, our parenting, our very existence. But when you bring this many women together and create a space of support and safety, magical things happen.

Writing projects that have languished in drawers and laptops spring to life again.

Women who have felt invisible wake up to their own value.

Writers who question their ability to touch readers are inspired by the stories of those who have impacted millions.

This is the stuff of the holidays, the consciousness we’re here to share, the light we’re here to celebrate in one another.

The lights of Santa Fe inspired me to think of it this way….

The luminarias on the roofs and sidewalks of this city usually start with a small candle, a bit of sand, maybe a Mason jar. You light the candle, put the jar in a paper bag, and the glow radiates out for everyone to see. The light doesn’t change depending on who walks by or what anyone thinks of it. It just shines, because that’s what it is.

That’s what all of us are, too. A candle, a flame, a steadfast glow. Sometimes it may seem that the candle and jar are in a box, the box is sealed shut and put in a locked cabinet, lost to the world, unseen, unnoticed. But inside, that light still radiates, illuminates….a light that’s needed in this world.

During Her Spirit, our faculty and participants unlocked the cabinets and unsealed the boxes together….a process that can feel terrifying at first. But as light is revealed, there is upliftment, celebration, a release of what has stood in your way that you may or may even have known.

We drew a collective breath as we heard the story of Kate Blewett, whose documentary on Chinese girls being left to die in orphanages years ago helped spark a global movement of adoption. One young woman who is alive because of that documentary estimated that 21 million young women on the planet are here because of Kate.

We cheered the work of Joany Kane, a screenwriter of Christmas rom-coms whose first movie, The Christmas Card, helped spark the whole Hallmark Christmas movie craze and is still the only Hallmark holiday movie nominated for an Emmy.

We saw writer after writer drop down her guard, light up with new ideas, and encourage the women around her—women who were strangers minutes or hours before.

Women lived out the retreat with open hearts, knowing they were held and safe. Knowing we are here to lift one another up.

I can say that I’m leaving my heart in Santa Fe in honor of all the hearts that awakened here in this past week.

Wherever you are, whatever you want to create, know that you’re made of light, too. Those lights on your Christmas tree or on your town square? They’re a symbol of what’s in you. And if you forget, don’t worry. That’s what the holidays—and every day—are for. We are all here to help one another remember.

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The Iowa Writers’ Collaborative quick links

I’m proud to be part of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative along with columnists I greatly admire.

Laura Belin: Iowa Politics with Laura Belin, Windsor Heights

Doug Burns: The Iowa Mercury, Carroll

Dave Busiek: Dave Busiek on Media, Des Moines

Art Cullen: Art Cullen’s Notebook, Storm Lake

Suzanna de Baca Dispatches from the Heartland, Huxley

Debra Engle: A Whole New World, Madison County

Julie Gammack: Julie Gammack’s Iowa Potluck, Des Moines and Okoboji

Joe Geha: Fern and Joe, Ames

Jody Gifford: Benign Inspiration, West Des Moines

Beth Hoffman: In the Dirt, Lovilla

Dana James: New Black Iowa, Des Moines

Tar Macias: Hola Iowa, Iowa

Fern Kupfer: Fern and Joe, Ames

Robert Leonard: Deep Midwest: Politics and Culture, Bussey

John Naughton: My Life, in Color, Des Moines

Chuck Offenburger: Iowa Boy Chuck Offenburger, Jefferson and Des Moines

Barry Piatt: Behind the Curtain, Washington, D.C.

Mary Swander: Mary Swander’s Buggy Land, Kalona

Cheryl Tevis: Unfinished Business, Boone County

Ed Tibbetts: Along the Mississippi, Davenport

Teresa Zilk: Talking Good, Des Moines

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