Storms That Carry Us Where We Need To Go
It's May 2013, and I just went through a breakup. I'm holding back tears on the subway when my coach at the time replies to the SOS email I sent her in a blur of heartache. She gently nudges me to come to her weekend retreat at Kripalu - and something in me says yes. I click the link, book last-minute community lodging, and buy a Greyhound bus ticket to Massachusetts.
Even though I'd lived in New York for a couple of years by then, taking the train uptown to the bus terminal feels like stepping into another era - one stitched with smoky promises, Joplin possibilities, and the kind of dreams you chase when you're willing to risk being undone. I wander around the station pretending I'm here for something bigger than heartbreak. That I'm someone with a dream in her pocket and nothing to lose.
in my moody-magical New York era
When I board the Greyhound, I choose the front row - dreamy-eyed yet still wary of the characters sitting in the shadows of the back. An eccentric-looking older woman with a gray pixie cut and a handwoven knit purse sits beside me. She's twiddling the strap thoughtfully, and once the bus pulls out of the city, we begin to talk.
She asks where I'm headed. I tell her the truth - about the breakup, about the retreat, about the hurt in my heart I can't seem to unfeel. She pats my knee with quiet assurance and says something that's stayed with me: “You'll get through this, honey. Sometimes life's storms carry you to places you never knew you needed to go.”
Then she starts telling me snippets of her life's story: most notably - she used to work on the set of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. “Fred was my friend in real life,” she says, with a twinkle in her voice. She shares a few juicy stories about Fred's personal life, stories from set, stories from her life - stories from the in-between places most people avoid speaking about. She talks about her granddaughters and her love for the Alexander Technique, emphasizing the importance of posture: “You may not care now,” she laughs, “but one day, it'll be all you've got!”
She exudes a kind of down-to-earth elegance - artistic, offbeat, entirely her own. Nearly 15 years later, I still can't recall her name, but I remember her face. Her presence. The way her kindness opened something hopeful in me. She was like a horizon, a prelude - someone sent to mark the space between no longer and not yet, offering hinted proof that this ending might actually be a beginning.
When my bus stop for Kripalu arrived a couple hours later, we hugged goodbye and wished each other well. The retreat hadn't even started yet - and I already felt like I'd received a nudge in a life-giving direction. Her words echoed through me: “Sometimes life's storms carry you to places you never knew you needed to go.”
That weekend - sitting in retreat circle, breathing in the beauty of the Berkshires, letting the grief of the breakup move through me by the lake - marked a turning point. I didn't leave Kripalu the same person who arrived. Upon return, I felt hesitantly hopeful and began making brave changes in my life.
If you had told that 23-year-old version of me that nearly 15 years later, I'd be invited back to facilitate a retreat at Kripalu, I'm not sure I would've believed you. But life's storms did, in fact, carry me places I never imagined. That breakup made space for me to leave NYC and move to Los Angeles, where I began receiving my master's in Spiritual Psychology. From there, my life opened - not in the way I had planned, but in a way my heart had been longing for all along.
This October, I'm honored to return to Kripalu - not as the heartbroken girl on a Greyhound, but as a guide - to offer a retreat called Earth Dreaming: Reawaken Your Intuition and the Subtle Senses.
It feels like a full-circle invitation - to return not just to a place, but to a moment in my story that cracked me open to deeper listening. I hope this retreat might do the same for you.
Kripalu is stunningly beautiful - nestled in the Berkshire Mountains, surrounded by lush forests (that will be at peak fall in October!), lakes, and a holy kind of quiet. It's a place where the noise of the outside world softens, and what's most essential inside you begins to rise.
If you feel the call to pause, reconnect, and attune to the subtle rhythms of your inner knowing through Earth, body, breath, and dream - I'd love to gather with you in circle this October.
You can receive all the details and sign up here!
If you have questions or would like to connect 1:1 to attune to whether this retreat is a right-fit for you, feel free to respond to this email and we can set up a time to connect further. For accommodation questions, please reach out to Kripalu directly.
In a world shaped by both beauty and so much sorrow, I feel called to hold spaces for deeper listening - the kind of listening that includes our breath, our bodies, our hearts, and the dreams that emerge when we immerse ourselves into listening to a wilder kind of wisdom. Sometimes - what you meet on retreat isn't just yourself... it's a stranger on a bus, a moment of grace, a future self waiting to be welcomed home💕
With love,
Madeline