Coffee, Clay, and Nowhere to Rush: A Day at Terracotta Makuʻu

Photo: Snoopy, our neighbor's good doggo, started this whole darn thing when I was invited to pet sit her in 2025. She occasionally drops by for pets and fetch, and to chase off the wild hogs. 

Because our retreat is off-grid, our time is set by the sun and weather, not by a clock or alarms.

We get up with the sunrise, naturally. When your cabin or yurt is filled with light, it's the perfect, gentle nudge that you're in paradise.

 For a moment, you try to remember what you’re supposed to be doing. Then you remember: This. You came here for this.

There’s local coffee and fresh tropical fruit waiting on the lanai. You take your time with breakfast, watch the morning light, and have a conversation that doesn’t begin with “Sorry, I only have five minutes.” Your phone can remain deeply uninvolved.

A morning for making

In the studio, we start with clay. Maybe you’re meeting the pottery wheel for the first time. Maybe you’ve been making things for years and finally have room to follow an idea without stopping to switch the laundry. Either way, you're spinning in our open-air studio, enjoying the tropic sounds and breeze, and realizing this is what life is supposed to be. 

There’s guidance when you need it and space to experiment when you don’t. A bowl goes a little sideways. Someone laughs. You start again. Nobody is grading the bowls.

An afternoon that opens things up

After lunch, the day might take you somewhere new. Depending on your retreat’s itinerary, you could be tasting chocolate at a cacao farm, learning beside a local glass artist, working with stained glass, or taking your watercolors outside.

Not every day includes every adventure. That’s part of the point: there’s time to actually be where you are. Notice a color. Notice the breeze. Smell the air. Taste that "finger lime" you've never heard of or seen before. Ask another question. Let something catch your attention without immediately turning it into a task.

Back to the table

Later, you might return to your pottery with an idea you didn’t have this morning. Or sit with your sketchbook. Or rest. Rest is not the thing you have to earn by making enough pottery. We really, really recommend the hammock by the rainbow eucalyptus, or the lounge chairs on the lanai.

On evenings when we share dinner at the retreat, the conversation can wander from what everyone made to the things they’re hoping to make room for back home. There’s good food, a small group of people getting to know each other, and no need to clear the table because someone has a meeting.

And then, enough

You step outside beneath the stars before heading back to your bed. Your hands have done something besides type today. There’s work waiting in the studio, but it can wait until morning.

You don’t have to have a revelation before bed. Maybe you’re simply tired, curious about tomorrow, and glad you came.

That’s a pretty good place to start.

This is a glimpse of the rhythm at Terracotta Makuʻu, not a fixed daily schedule. Art forms, excursions, meals, and free time vary by retreat.