Today was a rough day. It was challenging physically, emotionally and spiritually. Looking back on the day, I drew three cards to represent what I learned. They were The 9 of Pentacles, The Two of Cups and The Six of Swords (reversed).

The Six of Swords

The six of swords reversed is a card that indicates that you’re trying to move forward and leave your problems behind but there’s some kind of blockage. If there’s one card that could define the energy of today it would be the six of swords reversed.

Last night I didn’t sleep very well. I woke up off and on all night whimpering from my busted knee. I would turn in my sleep and a wave of pain would shoot up my leg. 5 AM rolled around and I couldn’t sleep any longer. I got up, had breakfast with my roommate and hung out until it was time for workshops.

The first workshop of the day was Double Hoop for Everyone with Gail O’Brien. Gail can do some super wild, crazy, amazing things with double hoops. We worked on using isolations to create illusions for most of the class. Gail is strongly influenced by contact juggling and by tech poi and it really comes out in her workshops. She encouraged all of us to cross train and I can’t agree with her more. I personally feel that every hooper should study poi for off body and double hoops.

Gail’s class was challenging and my knee hurt. I’m actually a pretty shy person (even though I’ve performed all over the world) and sometimes and my shyness gets the best of me.

I really wanted to talk to some of the people in the retreat but I found myself feeling intimidated by all the wonderful, talented, amazing women I was sharing the wantalian with. I started to feel really frustrated and I remembered what Sophia Rose said the day before at her healing session. She said that a lot of things were going to come to the surface that we would have to confront from the healing and to just let them come, recognize them and let them pass.

But I was having a hard time letting my frustrations pass. I really needed someone to talk to and I remembered that Laurie Thorp, one of our healers, had offered to let anyone come to her who needed to talk. The next workshop was Circle of Sadhana with Nayeli but I spent almost the entire session talking to Laurie about the things that have really been holding me back. I’ve gotten so good at robotically controlling my emotions that sometimes I don’t let my heart speak and it’s made my heart chakra unbalanced. This week, my heart chakra has been coming into balance.

The healing of my heart chakra started on Sunday (which ironically was Easter) after Anah’s first workshop. I laid down on the ground and felt a flush of heat pass through me. Then I felt my heart chakra spinning as it opened up and I realized that it became balanced for the first time in a long time. I talked to Laurie about this and we’re going to work on my heart chakra at a healing session on Friday. I’m excited to work with Laurie, who is a warm, matronly healer ready to help anyone in need. Needless to say, hooping is good for the heart.

I did make the end of the workshop but I wasn’t grounded. Talking about my problems only brought them out and in order to really move through them, I had to move through all the stages of grief and deal with them to truly let them pass.

I walked to lunch with some of the women from the retreat but I still felt unsettled. I started to really miss my boyfriend and although it made me sad, I recognized that he is my god to my goddess and that he makes me whole. Hence, the Two of Cups — A romantic partnership.

Lunch at the Elephant was delious again. I really enjoyed the fried tofu balls and the strawberry milkshake I had. It was really refreshing.

The afternoon workshop was Quantum Field Hoop Dance with Laurie Thorp. Laurie helped us work on energy healing by getting us in tune with our own personal power and helping us manipulate the energies around us. Then we laid down and did a guided self healing. This was my favorite part. She told us to listen to our bodies and find a chakra that needed attention. Of course, I chose the heart chakra. We were then told to put our hands on that chakra and transmit energy to it (similar to Reiki). I had a visually intense meditation in which I saw my heart chakra come out of my chest and turn into a blooming, crystal flower. I was able to rotate it and look at it and really see what was in my heart. This experience was very curious to me and I’m going to talk to Laurie about it in depth during our healing session.

The skill share of the day was with Gail, who is really inspiring and entertaining to listen to. She told us about how she got her start hooping in a small village in the UK. She didn’t have any hooper friends so she created her own community by making hoops. She eventually ended up leaving a good job in the medical field to pursue a career in hooping. It was really inspiring to listen to her story. She taught us a couple of new moves at the end of the skill share involving variations of ducking out of the hoop and breaking with duck outs. They were very contact staff influenced and it will be interesting to play with these new concepts.

I wandered around after skill share feeling sort of lost and unsettled. I filmed myself hooping at some beautiful places on site and then took a nap. I ate dinner and still felt really low energy. I thought that the hoop jam would be a good place to get back in good spirits so I joined everyone in the watailan.

9 of Cups

The 9 of Cups is a card that indicates satisfaction in everything you’ve worked for. It’s also the “wish” card, and if you pull it, it indicates that your wish will come true. Before the hoop jam, I put a call out to the universe to help me get over my shyness and connect with some of the women in the group.

The call was answered with the hoop jam and it was just what I needed. I was able to connect with a lot of the women in the retreat and I didn’t feel lonely anymore. I had a good time playing with all of my new friends, listening to good music and letting go of my shyness and insecurities.

Transformation isn’t always easy. But just like a catapillar in a cacoon, sometimes you need to go to a dark place, be silent and let the new you develop. And before you know it, you’ve become a butterfly.