At the Heart of So Much of What we Do is a Search for Belonging

At the heart of so much of what we do is a search for belonging. Whether it’s feeling at home with other people, at home in the spaces we move through, or at home within ourselves, we’re all trying to arrive at a particular feeling.

I like to think of this as each of us building our own dream home.

And to create that dream home, we have some important decisions to make: what we value, what we believe, what we say yes to, and ultimately how we spend our time and energy.

I’m Chelene Knight, author, creative practitioner, and a lover of language.

I work with writers and creative people to help them get the most out of their creativity via aligned-decision-making, and to find ways to make creativity a meaningful part of their everyday lives.

In 2024, I published a book of narrative nonfiction with HarperCollins Canada called Let It Go: Free Yourself from Old Beliefs and Find a New Path to Joy. Writing that book became the catalyst for a huge shift in my life. It meant letting go of people who no longer fit into my dream home, and even habits that were taking too much from me. This was long hard work that I’ll be doing for a lifetime. The difference is, I’m eager to do so.

In their place, I created space for slowness, deeper values work, stronger boundaries, and creative possibilities I never thought were possible.

This is what the retreat is all about.

But I didn’t do this work alone. I had guides. Some of the most powerful literary voices of our time like Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, Audre Lorde, and bell hooks, helped shape the thinking and reflection that brought me here.

Over the course of five days together, we’ll move through exercises, reflections, writing prompts, and discussion, woven together with plenty of space to simply… be.

To hold whatever comes up.

And by the end of our time together, we’ll begin aligning the pieces needed to build the foundation of our own dream homes.

But before we can build, we have to make space.

We have to collectively create the conditions to eventually … let go.

I can’t wait to work with you. The retreat is hosted by the good people at Hollyhock on Cortes Island, BC. See you there!