“We are participants in a vast communion of being, and if we open ourselves to its guidance, we can learn anew how to live in this great and gracious community of truth.”
– Parker J. Palmer from Let Your Life Speak
How are we creating and fortifying friendships and community in these times? How is our friendship with ourselves? How are we navigating the rapid changes and too slow ones in this time of turbulent Earth change? What is breaking our hearts open? What brings hope and inspiration? How does acknowledging and including Mother Earth as our community impact how we listen to our inner teachers and one another? What does Gaia say to us that can flow into our circle? How do we listen to Her? How do we co-create a future with the Living Earth, where all have dignity, peace, and the ability to live full, meaningful lives? If any of these questions live in you, please join us in my home in Millbrook and into the natural world, which welcomes us into “a vast communion of being.”
We are calling an intergenerational, diverse group of people, longing to savor these questions to renew hope, heart-strength, and stamina. In this retreat, based on the work of Parker J. Palmer and the Center for Courage & Renewal, we will explore how friendship and community grow, becoming the backbone of resilience in our chaotic, uncertain times. Our community extends to stones, plants, trees, animals; to the spirits of the elements, the warmth and light of fire, the power of wind, the intelligence of water, and the divine living being of Earth. We are part of a tapestry of “interbeing,” as Thich Nhat Hahn named it, which includes the invisible world of nature as well as the universe, where our ancestors and spirit guides are present for us, if we turn to them, with impulses for the evolution of all.
Guided by the Courage & Renewal® approach, we create a sacred, confidential space in which to do our own inner work in solitude and community. This retreat will include Clearness Committee, a powerful two-hour discernment process from the Quaker tradition, where one person who wishes to think more deeply about an issue has an opportunity to be the “focus person” while a “committee” of four to six others listen and ask open, honest questions. Both focus person and committee members share a profound experience in this unique way of supporting another human being in community.
If you are seeking rest and restoration, you are welcome. If you long to hear your true inner voice, you are welcome. We will explore the presence and emergence of community as we practice radical hospitality with self, other, and the natural world. Bring a friend or more than one from your community. Come by yourself. Come.
We will begin and end each session in my home, a 19th century Victorian with a cozy living room for our full circle and small groups; we’ll also be in the kitchen, dining room, foyer, and wrap-around porch for reflection in solitude and small groups. There is a labyrinth and gardens in the yard as well as beautiful trees. Depending on weather, especially mud underfoot, we will either spend time communing with the natural world in the yard, a local village garden, or in nearby forests and Innisfree, a world-class garden. (For Innisfree there is a nominal charge.)
Space is limited to 14 participants.
Please confirm you want to block this member.
You will no longer be able to:
Please note: This action will also remove this member from your connections and send a report to the site admin. Please allow a few minutes for this process to complete.
