Write from the Thin Places
Beckonings from the Stories + Songs Writing Retreat in Tuscany, Italy
We know in our bones, in our marrow and in our flesh,
We know in our skin and in our teeth.
We know in our bellies, deeper than that; we know in our guts.
We know in our wombs. We know in our births and in our unborn.
We know in our living and in our breathing.
We know in our leaving and in our dying.
We know in our sleep, in our dreams and in our spaces in between these.
We know in our thin places.
~Kerri Ni Dochartaigh
The thin places are where the magic happens. They are the spaces between worlds, between the world we know and the world we don’t know. The borderlines.
When you write from the edges of things, your writing is edgy. It is doubly-layered with meaning. Start there when you write. In the in-between. From the place where you don’t know everything.
In Irish tradition, heaven and earth are only three feet apart. But in the thin places (aiteanna ani, caol ait in Irish), that distance is a mist or a whisper. It is permeable.
The thin places are places where you experience something larger than yourself, as if you are held between worlds.
Keyhole pond in the secret garden, Tenuta de Spannocchia, near Siena, Italy
Ciao from Italy: Stories + Songs Writing Retreat
This week, I am not in Ireland but in Italy, at a 13th-century tenuta with a secret garden and a fairy woodland, co-leading the Stories + Songs Writing Retreat. We are steeping ourselves in the shadows of the forest, listening to the ancient stones talk. The stories are coming out.
In The Thin Places, Kelli Ni Dochartaigh writes, “There are places…which are so thin that you meet yourself in the still point.” The veil lifts, and you are held in the space in between, “no matter the past, the present or what is yet to come.” When you find yourself in the thin place, “there is nothing you can do but listen for the gap in the silence, the change in the wind.”
The thin places are where visitations, miracles, imaginings and inspirations occur, writes Clarissa Pinkola Estes in Women Who Run with the Wolves. Indeed, the wolves and wild boars run through the forest at night. When we were here in 2024 for the Stories + Songs Writing Retreat, we were told not to walk the trails at night. The wild boars will hunt you. The wolves prefer their stealth. This week, the moon is waxing to full.
The thin places are the places of insight—call them a-ha moments or call them drops of gold from a higher mind.
They are liminal—doorways, gateways—spaces that feel like they have been set aside for silence and deep, raw solitude.
These are the places where songs make sense—the last line that pulls it together. Or where stories feel complete—both surprising and inevitable.
Writing from the Thin Places
Have you ever experienced a “thin place”? Where was it, and what revealed itself to you?
Are there thin places where you are? Go, my friend. Go write there.
And if you want to come write with us the next time…do these two things right now!
1. Join our mailing list.
http://www.storiesandsongsretreat.com/
Or: https://www.carolynflynn.com/contact-me/
We’re planning Stories + Songs Writing Retreats for storytellers and songwriters in Ireland for June 2027 and Santa Fe in November 2027.
And…it is so serene and inspiring here in Italy, that we are planning to return in 2028.
The Ireland and Santa Fe retreats each will have a different theme and emphasis. We are designing each to shore you up with different skills and and craft, focused on different outcomes.
Ireland will be set in the mythic landscape of the Wild Atlantic Way in the west of Ireland by the sea. It will be designed to get you deep into the pages of your book so you’ll have a good running start (or finish it!).
Santa Fe will offer practical ways to set yourself up for success, all while steeped in the art, history and tricultural influences of The City Different. It will be a great place to start a creative project (stories or songs!) with an eye on how to be a thriving storyteller or songwriter in the world.
2. Create your own retreat with a Thin Places writing practice. Sometimes, finding the place that has two meanings is as simple as holding yourself still and noticing. As you sink into the place, let your breath and your mind settle into stillness. You may want to focus on something that is timeless, like stone pottery or a twisting tree trunk. Observe it with a calm mind. Or, let yourself observe it until you sense your mind calming. Let the place where you are just be, without any inner disturbance from you, the kind that comes from naming things or planning things. See, be. And the wisdom of the thin place will emerge.