This retreat is based on the work of Parker J. Palmer and the Center for Courage & Renewal. The Courage & Renewal® approach, described in Palmer’s book “A Hidden Wholeness,” focuses on cultivating our inner capacity to live a more authentic, meaningful, and engaged life.
This retreat is for anyone needing a place to do inner work on life’s core questions in community. How are you faring both inwardly and outwardly? How do you embrace brokenness to move toward the reality of wholeness as challenges deepen in very 21st-century ways? How are you staying connected to self, family, friends, community, and the larger earth community as we live with the aftermath of a global pandemic, the relentless brutality of racism–head-on for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color–and other forms of hatred and othering; uncertainty in many shapes and sizes; and global climate derangement, causing suffering for many on our yet resilient planet? How do we resist turning away from the suffering, and with what frame of heart do we turn towards it? How do we find the courage to live with awe, joy, and delight at this transformational time?
We can’t do this work alone. We invite you to join us online for four sessions that introduce a Circle of Trust® as together we create a sacred, confidential space in which to do our own inner work in solitude and community. In all four sessions, we will have the opportunity to listen generously to our inner teacher (soul, spirit, still small voice, inner voice, identity, and integrity) and to one another in small groups and the whole group, speaking from the heart. Since a Circle of Trust is enriched by metaphors, we will reflect on “third things”: poetry, prose, images, video, and song. The quality of the space is shaped by the practices that everything we do is invitational and confidential. We willingly surrender the need to fix, change, advise, save, or correct. Instead, listening deeply and learning to ask open, honest questions open new doors in our relationships with self and others as we each find our way to live an undivided life.
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.
