Folding and Unfolding: An International Sowing Circle

folded moments unfold,
refold, enfold, fold-up, fold-out,
foldaway.

   —Lottie Crindell

Michèle le Roux and Sally Z. Hare invite you to attend one or both of our online retreats at the turning of the year.  Each retreat stands on its own – and attending both will allow you to explore even more deeply what the quiet dormancy of this season may be offering you.

“Winter is kind: she points us in her quiet soft way towards our inner self,
towards this annual time of peace and reflection,
embracing the darkness and forgiving,
accepting and loving, embracing goodbye to the past year.”
– Brigit Anna McNeill

The theme of this retreat is inspired by the season of the year in the northern hemisphere. In the first retreat, we invite you to reflect on what you have sown and what you have harvested in 2025. What will you carry forward as soul nourishment for the coming year? What might need pruning, thinning or weeding? What will you discard onto the compost heap? Each retreat stands on its own and in the second retreat of this “diptych”, in January, we will offer the opportunity to prepare the ground for 2026 – not “making resolutions”, but rather waiting, hibernating, mulching…  We invite you also to embrace the period of descent and rest between the two retreats, of going within ourselves and taking in all that we have been through, all that has passed in the full year which is coming to a close… like nature and the animal kingdom around us, this time of hibernation is so necessary for our tired limbs, our burdened minds.

The Sankofa bird is the symbol of the African proverb: It is not taboo to go back and fetch that which you have forgotten.  As an important metaphor in Sally’s book, The ElderGarten: The Field Guide for the Journey of a Lifetime, this mythical bird holds a sacred seed in her beak, guarding and stewarding it with her life as she moves forward but looks backward.

During these three-hour online retreats, we will look back and move forward together, guided by the Courage & Renewal^® approach and the lens of the ElderGarten. We will create a sacred, confidential space in which to do our own inner work in solitude and community. We will have the opportunity to listen generously to our inner teacher and to one another in small groups and the whole group, speaking from the heart. A Circle of Trust^® is enriched by metaphors. In this space everything we do is invitational, and we honor a commitment to no fixing, advising, saving, or correcting. Instead, listening generously and learning to ask open, honest questions can open new doors in our relationships with self and others as we nurture our capacity for reflection, renewal and hope.