Deep Writing: A FEELed Lab Summer Retreat

This FEELed Note reflects on “Deep Writing: A FEELed Lab Summer Retreat” held at the lab in May 2026, co-convened by Susanne Pratt (Visiting Researcher at the FEELed Lab) with FEELed Lab Director Astrida Neimanis. The note was written by Susanne and Rhona Eve Clews, with iterative feedback and photos by Astrida and other participants, Rupinder Kaur Grewal and Natalie Forssman.

The retreat took place at the FEELed Lab, at the Woodhaven Eco Cultural Centre, creating space for walking/moving/resting together on unceded Syilx territory, over four days at the end of May 2026. The event emerged from the desire of both Astrida and Susanne to create space for writing while being in company. Rather than a retreat per se, a (re)treating and tending to the arts of crafting words on the page, and what the body needs to do this well.

Susanne and Astrida composed an EOI as an open call to other educators, researchers, artists and/or community members who wanted to attend deeply to writing. The EOI framed the “deep writing” retreat as “a dedicated space and time to work on a project that needs tending to, such as a book, a thesis, a journal article, artwork or lesson plans…”  Three other delightful deep writers joined: Rhona (visiting from the UK), and two local Kelowna participants, Natalie and Rupinder. Two expanded to five.

In this FEELed Lab Note, rather than reflecting on each day in detail, Susanne offers some reflexive poetic snippets, taking inspiration from Fluxus art event scores (in grey text boxes). They accompany photos taken by Rhona, Astrida, Suanne and Rupinder, and some further reflexive process notes written jointly by Susanne and Rhona. The snippets, photos and additional text alight on some of the things we appreciated for weaving conditions for deep writing, individually and together, based on what emerged over the four days, and are a product of that collective confluence.

Making time

EOI
clear calendar
doing-it-together for four days
phones away
deep writing

How we enter

Prior to starting the retreat, Susanne and Rhona took part in the Land as Teacher workshop held at Woodhaven, hosted by IndigenEYEZ, in collaboration with the FEELed Lab, which offered us a grounding with the unceded Syilx territory where the writing retreat was located, at the FEELed Lab. The workshop offered deliberate practices of noticing and wondering with land and others as a means of weaving relations.

Some of the practices we were introduced to included a seven wonders activity where we were invited to take a piece of string and drape it to form a circle around a small patch of land and then identify seven wonders within that circle. Another practice invited us to take a walk with another participant, and converse by only starting each sentence with either “I notice, I learnt, or I wonder…” There were many more practices in deepening relations, but these two resonated with us through the deep writing workshop for their invitation to notice and take delight in wonder as a means of being and connection on Syilx territory.

We felt this specific structure connected us to the land, which, as white visitors to unceded Syilx territory, felt especially important. We also noticed that listening to others’ seven wonders plunged us into a powerful empathy, hearing what stood out to them gave us glimpses of access and intimacy to others’ internal processes, understanding how they connected with the land and place where the Woodhaven Eco Cultural Centre, and FEELed Lab, now stand.

Beginning and weaving conditions

A shared poem on weaving conditions, on “how to make a basket”*

Day one began with a bowl of tea, a bundle of mandarins, and a plunge of coffee around a kitchen table, moving to sharing land acknowledgements and what brought us here. While the initial focus of the four days was on progressing individual writing — which influenced individual rhythms — collective rhythms and confluences emerged through shared suggestions, timings and discussion across the four days.

We explored ways of creating and modelling other ways of being with writing.  How do you ‘do’ and complete without unconsciously slipping into the default settings and pressures of productivity imperatives, and other outdated logics of late-stage Capitalism and Patriarchy that are ripe for hospicing? Asking ourselves, (how), is that possible? By leading with intuition, dance breaks, frequent walks, and sensitive acknowledgement of the body and each other’s individual needs, we felt through possibilities together.

Placing writing, writing in place

place yourself to write, or read, or nap, or practice noticing through a lens,** or walk, or perform all the other ways in which we “write” and create the places these actions need for yourself and others

Cueing Material supports

arrange cue cards to sort and re-arrange an argument

Embodied Sense-making by walking together

take a walk in pairs, and share, and swap, and then together in a circle to reflect back together what we heard. What glowed? Walk in pairs again, and swap, and circle and share again.

Breaking together and apart

stage a two-song dance party: step outside, step in time, bodies warming, bodies unfurling limbs, noticing caterpillars, noticing rivering, noticing rhythms.

take a midday swim

optional, all optional, each tend to what needs tending.

Holding intentions and Intuitions

take a card in the morning and share its meaning and feelings; opening to intuitions and intentions for the rest of the day.

Some of us took these cards into the spaces that we chose to work in, as a touch point or grounding anchor to continue to pause or reflect on. We also used different decks, which each brought different qualities and tones, and tuned into those tonalities. Natalie brought a plant deck Dirt Gems, after starting with a more traditional tarot deck the previous day.

Visualising tension

speed collage tensions in writing, then each take turns to ‘read’ the collage for one another, vocalising juxtapositions and motifs

For the collaging activity, we chose to work with the muddy, yucky place that we were each finding it hard to move past in our writing. What happens when this changes form, is made tangible through collage, and is read by others? We made the collages inside and then moved outside by the river to read them for each other.

How we end

perform a closing ritual and open oneself to other beginnings

Rhona bought each of us a beeswax tealight and combined a ritual with Astrida, drawing upon an exercise that had been shared with her, which invites acknowledging energies that we are ready to both release and gather. We found a match box with one match left (!!) tending carefully to this last match to light our candles, express thanks and speak out our intentions, bridging us out of the sanctuary of the retreat back to ‘normal’ schedules and life. We witnessed and cheered each other on, before some of us dunked our heads in the river to close!

Acknowledgements:

Thank you to all the others that supported with this retreat, including Fran Brouse, Julia Jung and carers of Woodhaven Eco Cultural Centre, Woodhaven Nature Conservancy Regional Park and unceded Syilx lands.

* Money, J. (2021). How to make a basket. University of Queensland Press.  

** Rupinder added this poetic snippet, “or practice noticing through a lens” It signals how photography became an important part of her practice while deep writing, with a future FEELed Lab Note to come on this.