Courage to Cultivate Community: Monthly Mini-Retreat for Renewal & Resilience with Community Builders

As spring blossoms into community work & energy bursts forth, tap into & renew what’s important to you. Our communities have much to do – and need us to be resilient. Feed your power from the inside out, in hospitable company.

Just as trees are tapped to release their sweetness, we, too, can tap into our gifts, wisdom, and hopes to nourish our communities.

• For example, the freeze/thaw cycle reflects the natural ebb and flow of growth—how moments of stagnation can lead to transformation when approached with wisdom and experience.
• How else can the maple syrup cycle encourage us in this 24th monthly mini-retreat?

Come, experience a range of gentle, respectful options to notice the life that wants to live in you: inviting that to be savored, and to offer its wisdom.

Recharge for now, and grow practices that keep you fresh for the long run.

• If community builders burn out, then “the way things are” is the way they’ll stay – or get worse.
• So how about putting on your “oxygen mask” to catch your breath?

Who’s it for?

Anyone who’s engaged in building up their community or hopes to do so – however you define it, in any setting, paid or unpaid. Such communities can be found in neighborhoods and social movements, classrooms and congregations, ballfields and clubs, associations and networks, workplaces and beyond.

• We who give so much to others may want to recharge personally or professionally.

All are welcome! This series is convened by Neighborhood Connections & the Neighbor Up Network, known for bringing people together across lines of difference.

Any prior experience needed?

• None! No advance preparation either. Come as you are, who you are.
• Each mini-retreat stands alone. And for those who can attend more than one, these build upon each other.
• There are always newcomers. Please invite others to consider it?

How will we spend our time on the mini-retreat?

• We have a framework with a variety of whole-group, small group, and solitary activities. We’ll have time to tend to “the heart of the community builder.”

The respectful Courage & Renewal approach we’ll be using is seen by clicking here.

• You’re not there to take care of anyone else but yourself. So there’s no fixing, advising, or “saving” one another.
• We neither go one-by-one around the circle, nor call out participants to speak.
  • Everything here is an invitation, not a demand.
• This creates a rare space in western culture for the static within us & around us to subside, so each of us may hear more of our own inherent gifts, hopes & wisdom.

We’ll share poetry, images and stories from a wide variety of traditions, including perhaps from the lives of those present. Art supplies are available for those who enjoy using those to explore their reflections.

Each month we tap different themes rooted in NE Ohio’s geographic seasons. Did you know Ohio is in the top 5 states making maple syrup?

Who’s facilitating?

• Erika Brown, Kate Klonowski and Tony Vento lead a team that can hardly wait to share the easy-to-use approach they prepared to feed your spirit. Their bios are here.
• They co-create a space with participants that is open & hospitable, reflective & non-invasive, evocative yet focused.