Current events can leave us wondering just who we can trust and if the ground beneath our feet will hold. Amid social outrage, political polarisation, life-threatening health crises, killings in our neighborhoods, and wars of aggression virtually next door, many of us may wonder how we can offer hope and where we can find it ourselves. Still others find themselves in the fray, working out solutions and advocating for change.
While our shared intuitions suggest that the truest way forward is always love, experience tells us that loving in the face of discord is no small challenge. Loving well calls for deep wisdom and can require great courage. How do we show up in troubling times with the quiet, courageous power of love?
They say that “while we care for what we love, biology also teaches us that we come to love what we care for.” Taking Care connects us, and human connection is a strong counterforce to the hostilities and alienation around us. Our daily acts of Taking Care are a quiet way to courageously embrace the power of love for ourselves and extend the power of love to others. In taking care we affirm our intimate connection — our kinship — with the living beings that surround us.
This series of six online gatherings is an invitation to “retreat”, to offer yourself time to explore the ways you take care in the world — your kinship connections — with children, with aging parents, with colleagues, with strangers, and within the larger habitat we all share. It is an invitation to set aside several hours during the last three week-ends of winter to remember the power of love, to listen for the deep wisdom you hold within, and to renew the courage needed to sustain your own acts of taking care in the world.
The principles and practices of the Circle of Trust®, developed by the Center for Courage and Renewal®, will give shape to our times together. You can learn more about the Center for Courage and Renewal® and the Circle of Trust® retreats in the “About Us” section of this website.
Who is this for?
These gatherings are for everyone who aspires to a more caring and hospitable world — through the work they do and through their own acts of taking care both close to home and beyond.
Everyone is welcome to participate, those new to the Courage & Renewal® approach and those who have previous experience with this work.
Please plan to participate fully in all six sessions. Each session builds on previous sessions and introduces new practices — thoughtful ways of being together — as we collaborate to foster a climate of trust.
What to expect:
The Circle of Trust® is an intentional space held by facilitators prepared by the Center for Courage and Renewal®. Using images from art, the natural world, and literature — they invite participants to go within, to reconnect with their own deep wisdom and to reflect on the ways they bring that wisdom into the responsibilities and relationships of their everyday lives.
In joining the Circle, participants agree to a set of practices that help make the Circle a safe, judgment-free space for this inner work.
This online “retreat” will feature:
• Times of solitude for personal reflection
• Online interaction with the full circle of 10 to 20 participants
• Moments in smaller groups to listen and be listened to
• Space for silence
• Freedom to engage on whatever level is right for you
• A mutual commitment to hold all conversations in strict confidence
• “Voices” from varied cultural backgrounds
• A Clearness Committee experience
Some themes that will be offered for your reflection:
Kith & Kin: Caring for those closest in.
Kinship with Self: Tending my own inner world
Contradictions: Holding the paradoxes of caring
The Kinship of human being: Caring beyond my circle of family & friends
Kinship of place: Caring for the habitat that shelters and sustains us
What you’ll take away.
Participants report finding, through the Circle of Trust experience, new insights, renewed courage, and greater clarity with which to resume their presence and work in the world.
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.
