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“‘Heart’ comes from the Latin cor and points not merely to our emotions but to the core of the self, that center place where all of our ways of knowing converge – intellectual, emotional, sensory, intuitive, imaginative, experiential, relational, and bodily, among others. The heart is where we integrate what we know in our minds with what we know in our bones, the place where our knowledge can become more fully human. Cor is also the Latin root for the word courage.” – Parker J. Palmer from Healing the Heart of Democracy
The heart is the core. My heart centers me; our heart centers us. “But isn’t there just one heart center?” asked a dear one in my life when I shared the theme of this retreat series. I thought so, too, until last year when I read The Love Sphere of the Earth: Awakening the Nuclear Power of the Human Heart by Marko Pogačnik, who has discovered another four centers. Marko “joyfully announce[s] to my fellow human beings that the full love power of the human heart is about to awaken and transform the unfavorable world developments. Something essentially new has been set in motion!” That was good news among so much catastrophe bombarding us. Like all things human, however, we are the ones who must choose to develop and activate these centers. If I’ve awakened your curiosity, please join us for a five-session online series.
Let’s gather an intergenerational, diverse group of people, longing to create a vessel in which we can feel the potential of our expanding hearts. I want to live into this and cannot do it alone. With the Courage & Renewal® Approach, together we dependably create a Circle of Trust, a hospitable space in which we can each learn and grow. Based on the work of Parker J. Palmer and the Center for Courage & Renewal, we work with trauma-informed practices that support our relationships with self, each other, and community, including the Living Earth. Together we create a sacred, confidential, courageous space in which to do our own inner work in solitude and community, to explore our deepest individual hearts entwined with the evolution of the human heart.
If participants wish, this retreat will include Clearness Committees, a powerful and unique discernment process from the Quaker tradition, where one person who wishes to think more deeply about an issue or question 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, involving our whole heart in support of another human being.
The Center for Courage & Renewal and its facilitators do not discriminate on the basis of race, creed, color, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender expression, age, height, weight, physical or mental ability, veteran status, military obligations, and marital status.
