 |
||||||||
 |
||||||||
 |
||||||||
 |
||||||||
 |
||||||||
 |
||||||||
 |
||||||||
 |
||||||||
 |
||||||||
MAKING FRIENDS WITH TIME: Silence, Patience, and Presence
Women’s Winter Contemplative Retreat with Carolyn Foster
JANUARY 8-10, 2010
Santa Sabina Center, San Rafael
Silence is making-friends-with-time. It does not fight it or waste it; it refuses to run after it. Silence floats free with time, letting the pattern of the moments unfold at its own pace. It is a way of becoming free.
Sister Wendy Beckett, Meditations on Silence
In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.From “For a New Beginning” by John O’Donohue
We signal readiness for new beginnings when we go on retreat two weeks into a New Year. Our priorities won’t be dictated by all those lists and anxieties but by the fruits of reflection. In honoring winter’s pull to the interior world, we stop trying to make things happen and simply let things happen. Doing so, even for a weekend, helps us discern the best choices when we return to the world of talk, activities, and information overload.
In quiet and community, we will explore what it means to make friends with time.
Santa Sabina Center offers gracious hospitality, beauty, and a refuge for contemplation and renewal. Whether you want to be cozy inside or clear your mind in winter air, the house, courtyard, and gardens offer dozens of places to settle into serenity. Program times alternate with free time for hiking, napping, playing in the art center, reading, or lying by a fire. The silences and conversations are as healing a diet as the good food.
Register by calling my voicemail, (510) 484-3078 on or after Monday, November 9. You may reserve for yourself and a friend with one call or have a friend call for you if you’ll be out of town. Last resort: e-mail me at cjf@creativechoices.net. Sometimes people assume calling late won’t work, but whenever you get this or get around to deciding, call anyway. The cost of the retreat is $290 for a double room, $340 for a single room. This includes lodging, program, and six meals, from dinner Friday night through lunch Sunday. I am also now able to offer 10 units of CEUs to MFTs and LCSWs, for an additional charge of $35; let me know if you want this option.
Come early in the New Year to bless your new beginnings!
To receive email or regular mail notification of details of this retreat and how to register...
 |