Writing, Retreats, Aging and AI

A post about all the things in my head right now.

A retreat is about creating space for what's meaningful to you, but you don't have time for in everyday life.

- Kirsteen MacLeod

I feel pulled towards doing more writing lately. It might be that seasonal desire to draw inward.

I have several groups, circles, and workshops currently running. It’s great. I love hearing people’s stories and learning together. I also have my annual retreat happening in October. I know when I get on the other side of it, I’ll be ready to put on cozy clothes and read and write for a few months. I’ve lived in Canada all my life, and I know how to ‘winter.’

I like being with people, and I like copious amounts of time alone. I’m so grateful that I get to create a schedule that suits me. And technology has made it possible.

I am learning to embrace the cycles and rhythms of my life: the seasons, the calendar and my own energy levels. I spent all morning drinking tea and reading. I had a busy weekend. I have a busy week ahead. My soul needed to catch up to my body. It’s a privilege to have the time.

I can’t imagine a more appealing book to be reading on a lazy Monday morning than In Praise of Retreat: finding sanctuary in the modern world. In it, author Kirsteen MacLeod writes, “The desire to retreat is constant throughout recorded history in all places and religions. Always for nonconformists, it is, as ever, today being embraced by those who want to reclaim freedom to just be, spend time outdoors in nature, make art, think deeply, tend their spiritual life, heal—and often, marshal energies for future action.”

I’ve been thinking about this book as I work on the sessions for The Alchemy of Aging. It’s easy for me to equate a full schedule with providing the best value to the women attending. The truth is, what we all need is time to integrate all that is going on in our lives with all the information constantly coming our way. This year, we’ll be stepping a little more into a balanced schedule.

We already have time outdoors, making art and all the good things that make up a retreat, but this year, I’ll be adding in a little more time to process and integrate the conversations we are having. I believe we will co-create something transformational.

The labyrinth at Crieff Hills. A great place to get rooted.

There are two rooms available. If you are feeling tired already this fall and would love some time to yourself before the busy season of the end of the year, consider joining us.

The other, unrelated topic on my mind when it comes to writing is the role AI plays in my work. I’ve dabbled in it a little. Enough to know how it can help me and how it can be another time suck that makes me lazy about thinking things through on my own.

I subscribed to a Substack recently. The ‘author’ was writing about women and aging. We occupied a similar space. Her posts land in my inbox, usually at the same time every day. After reading a few of them, I felt like something was off. Her writing sounded too consistent. It is hard to explain other than that something was not quite right. I would use the word artificial. I started wondering how someone could write so much, so regularly, and really integrate anything they were talking about. Maybe that sounds judgmental, but it’s my Substack, and I believe a necessary part of what a wise elder does is use discernment.

Today, I took two of her recent posts and ran them through a program that detects whether something has been written with AI. The first post returned a score of 79%, indicating it was written with AI. The second post was 87%. Of course, I have unsubscribed.

In contrast, I received something from Tracie Nichols. There was so much humanity in her words. I noticed at the end of her post that she has a badge that declares it was not written using AI. I like that idea. I’ve added it to the bottom of this post.

AI may have a place in our work, but using it to write a Substack and sell products feels sleezy to me, especially if you are not being transparent about that information.

And back to the retreat. I promised you that everybody who signed up is a real person. It might be refreshing to get offline for a few days and listen to yourself and not what some algorithm is feeding you. There is so much artificiality in our world.

The retreat closes next week, so if you would like to sign up, please do so before October 1^st.

Keeping it real,

Sandy

A couple of other things!

1. If you haven’t looked at The Soul-Centered Legacy Project, here is the link.

2. I also took an email course I had put together several years ago and created a PDF for people-pleasers called Disappoint More People.