March 13, 2024

7:00 – 8:30 pm ET – online with Zoom

At different points in our lives, we often find ourselves questioning our choices and recurring situations. These moments of introspection lead us to ponder why we continuously act in certain ways or encounter similar circumstances. Carl Jung’s concept of ‘archetypes’ describe the instinctive roles we embody- the parent, the child, the hero, the lover, and an array of others. Among these numerous archetypal roles, a select few become our ‘dominant archetypes.’ These prevalent personas tend to manifest more frequently, shaping our responses to life situations. Relying heavily on familiar roles might sometimes limit our perspectives. It’s akin to seeing everything as a nail when you’re a hammer- an unconscious bias that might hinder our ability to explore alternative approaches, and a wholistic, balanced solutions to our life decisions.

Our presenter: Mark Grandstaff, Ph.D

Mark holds a PhD in Institutional Culture and History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the President and CEO of Renaissance-Thinkers and former professor of History and Leadership at Bringham Young University. Dr. Grandstaff’s passion is to bring Jungian work to military and educational leaders to increase their self-awareness, and reinvigorate their sense of purpose.

Registration is closed for this program.

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April 5 – 7, 2024 at Wisdom House in Litchfield, CT

REGISTRATION HAS CLOSED FOR THIS EVENT

A Graduate Guild semi-annual weekend retreat with our presenter Sophfronia Scott, author of the book The Seeker and the Monk: Everyday Conversations with Thomas Merton (Broadleaf Books, 2021). This special event is open to the public!

 Mysticism is often viewed as the privileged experience of a few chosen, holy individuals. However, the Jesuit priest and theologian Karl Rahner wrote about “everyday mysticism,” and Carmelite Sister Ruth Burrows described the mystical life simply as “God touching the depths of our being.” God is closer than we think–to all of us. But how can we become more aware of when the divine is near? We’ll explore everyday mysticism as life events filled with God’s unmistakable presence. Sharing Thomas Merton’s experiences and her own, Sophfronia will help attendees notice, identify, and appreciate mystical encounters in their everyday lives.

Date: Friday April 5, 2024 at 4:00 pm to Sunday April 7, 2024 at 1:00 pm
Location: Wisdom House Retreat Center in Litchfield, Connecticut and via Zoom

Sophfronia Scott is the founding director of the Alma College MFA in Creative Writing. She grew up in Lorain, Ohio, a hometown she shares with author Toni Morrison. Her father was a Mississippi-born steelworker who never learned how to read and her mother was a stay-at-home mom who always made sure there were books in the house. She holds a BA in English from Harvard and an MFA in writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Sophfronia spent a big chunk of her career as a writer and editor for Time and People magazines where she developed the uncanny ability to create order out of chaos by whittling massive amounts of facts and ideas into a single cohesive form. Learn more about Sophronia Scott at https://sophfronia.com/

More information about Wisdom House Retreat Center can be found here.

Retreat Cost: $125 – $380 depending on accommodations

• REGISTRATION HAS CLOSED FOR THIS EVENT

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May 19, 2024:  7:00 pm – 8:30 pm ET

Disciplines of the Spirit by Howard Thurman

The Guild for Spiritual Guidance warmly invites you to a free, soulful discussion of Howard Thurman’s Disciplines of the Spirit. Dr. Howard Thurman (1900-1981) is a 20th century American mystic who also was minister, educator, philosopher, poet, and a spiritual guide to the civil rights and interfaith movements. In this book, Dr. Thurman-explores five major dimensions of the spiritual life: commitment, growing in wisdom and stature, suffering, prayer, and reconciliation.  We’d love to hear your thoughts on this important book.

While our quarterly Book and Film Discussions are free and open to all, we welcome your voluntary donations of any amount (suggested donation is $20) to help us at the Guild for Spiritual Guidance defray the costs of offering and hosting them.  

Registration Deadline – May 16, 2024

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If you would like to register for the book discussion and also give a donation to The Guild it is a two step process.

1. Please click the “Register Here” button below and you will receive the Zoom link for the program.
2. Please also click the “Donate” button below to make your contribution in any amount. Thank you.
   

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May 18 (11 am-1 pm) & May 19 (4-6 pm) and
May 25 (11 am-1 pm) and May 26 (4-6 pm), 2024 ET
Online via Zoom

REGISTRATION DEADLINE EXTENDED – NEW REGISTRATION DEADLINE: MAY 16, 2024

Embark on a transformative journey with Dr. Emily DeMoor in her upcoming 4 session webinar series, “Intersubjectivity and the Noosphere: Love, Entanglement and Convergence. Dive into the profound exploration of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s visionary concept of the noosphere, with a groundbreaking fusion of science and spirituality. Dr. DeMoor will unravel the threads of interconnectivity in both non-human and human relationships, drawing from the realms of the Human Energy Project*, literature, psychology, and the teachings of influential figures like Thomas Berry, CGJung, Ilia Delio and mystic Ramon Panikkar.

Join us on May 18-19 and May 25-26 for a captivating exploration that goes beyond boundaries, offering ‘hope on the edge’ as a guiding light toward a brighter, interconnected future. Don’t miss the opportunity to be a part of this enriching experience where love, entanglement, and convergence shape the path to a more profound understanding of our evolving existence.

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Presenter: Emily DeMoor, Ph. D

With a Master of Arts in Musicology from Tulane University, a Master of Pastoral Studies with a focus in Religion and Ecology from the Loyola Institute for Ministry, and a Ph.D in curriculum and Instruction from Louisiana State University, Emily brings a multidisciplinary approach to all she does. Through her teaching, retreats, publications and presentations she has reached national and international audiences. Her research interests include process theology, eco-theology, intersubjectivity, and the role of hope and love in shaping attitudes and actions toward the natural world amid climate change. Dr. DeMoor serves as Director of the Caritas Center at Brescia University and as Director of Christophany Groups for the Center for Christogenesis and does curriculum development for the Human Energy Project.

Program fee: $75.00
This is an online program using Zoom.
EXTENDED: Registration deadline: May 16, 2024
Dates and times of program:
May 18, 2024 – 11:00 – 1:00; May 19, 2024 – 4:00 – 6:00 pm ET
May 25, 2024 – 11:00 – 1:00 pm; May 26, 2024 – 4:00 – 6:00 pm ET

**Special registration note: If paying by credit card PayPal will default to try to create a PayPal account for you. If you do not want to create a PayPal account please follow these brief instructions to “uncheck” that option.

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Sunday, February 4, 2024
6:30 – 8:00 pm

The Guild for Spiritual Guidance warmly invites you to a free, lively discussion of the book, The Seeker and the Monk: Everyday Conversations with Thomas Merton, (2021 Broadleaf Books) by  Sophfronia Scott, as an invitation to the Spring Graduate Guild retreat (which will also be open to the public) featuring the author. All are welcome.

Program fee: Free
Registration Deadline: February 1, 2024
Registration for this program has closed.

PROGRAM CANCELLED

January 13, 2024 – 9:00 am to 5:00 pm
January 14, 2024 – 9:00 am to 12:00 pm

Diarmuid will guide us on a revolutionary journey of moving beyond understandings of spirituality that emphasize holiness as detachment from our world and attachment to a world beyond. O’Murchu encourages a rediscovery of the sacred here on Earth, an ecologically- focused spirituality propelled by the critical issues that currently face the well-being of creatures and ecosystems around the planet.

Presenter: Diarmuid O’Murchu

Diarmuid O’Murchu, a member of the Sacred Heart Missionary Order, and a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin Ireland, is a social psychologist whose early working life had been in social ministry, predominantly in London, UK. In more recent years he has worked as a workshop leader and group facilitator, conducting programs on Adult Faith Development across several countries. He is a widely read author whose books include: Doing Theology in an Evolutionary Way (Orbis 2021), Beyond the Pandemic: Spiritual and Ecological Challenges (Orbis 2022),  and Ecological Spirituality, Orbis Books, due for release Feb-Mar 2024.  

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The Grief Community Gathering Program – 6 sessions, Saturdays 10:00 – 11:30 am ET – will offer monthly explorations of a variety of openings to grief. We grieve through the sufferings of the world, social injustices, climate change, loss of our life expectations. We grieve collectively and grieve the same losses that our ancestors have grieved for generations. And, of course, we grieve our personal losses through death of loved ones, loss of a home/job, family pet, or loss of health. We will connect the paradoxes of Joy and Grief and explore the ways we grieve, through teachings on each topic. Sharing and expressing our feelings through, story, music, poetry, movement, tears and laughter.

Three Sessions – Each Consisting of 6 Online Gatherings
Saturdays 10:00 am-11:30 am ET

No Sessions will be held in JULY or AUGUST

PLEASE NOTE NEW DATES
Session I: Sept. 28, 2024, Oct. 26, Nov. 23, Dec. 28, Jan. 25, 2025, Feb. 22, 2025
Session II: Mar. 29, 2025, Apr. 12, May 24, June 28, Sept. 27, Oct. 25, 2025

Presenter Info
Rev. Dianne Disston, LP, NCPsyA

Dianne is a licensed Psychoanalyst, an ordained Interfaith Minister and trained Spiritual Guide. She has a private practice via Zoom which integrates both her spiritual approach and psychoanalytic approach as her client needs require. Dianne is currently the Director of a 2-Yr. Apprenticeship Program for The Guild for Spiritual Guidance and has completed her Certification in Grief, Trauma & Renewal Counseling. She loves music, nature, her two adult children, David & Ashleigh, their partners, Brynn & Athena, and her husband, Todd. Spending time with friends and colleagues creating safe community is a way to expand Love in our world. Her greatest wish is to continue that expansion of Love in as many ways as possible.

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Please join one or both sessions. Registration information for each session will be available a couple of months before each session begins. For more information please contact info@spiritualguidance.org.

Cost per person for each 6 month session: $185.00 After payment is received you will get an email with the Zoom link for the program.

Registration Deadline for Session One: September 26, 2024

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Online Program – Wednesdays December 6, 2023 and January 3, 2024

The Guild for Spiritual Guidance invites you to an evening of “Holding Grief” in community and in solidarity with those who are experiencing all of the unspeakable horrors of war. You are invited to gather for a time of silence on Wednesday evenings, December 6, 2023 and January 3, 2024 from 7:30 – 8:00 pm.

Holding grief together in silence is a way to share compassion and healing for a hurting world. Please join the zoom room in silence. Following 30 minutes of silence, there will be time for an additional 30 minutes of tender conversation for those who need to share.

Please register for one or both of the Zoom meetings below. For more information please email info@spiritualguidance.org.

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Jean Gebser, Francis of Assisi and You

Under the Tuscan Sun

Italy Pilgrimage

September 20-30, 2024

    A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.  

                                                                                               Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

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Itinerary

Casentino Valley              Camaldoli Monastery in Poppi

Romena       La Verna                Arezzo

National Park of the Casentino Forests

Camaldoli Monastery & Hermitage

Florence:  Uffizi Gallery, Accademia Gallery, Museum of the Duomo 

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The Guild for Spiritual Guidance warmly extends an invitation to you – an invitation to embark on a transformative pilgrimage of exploration, one that weaves together the rich tapestry of evolutionary wisdom from ages past. It is our heartfelt belief that spirituality, psychology, and cosmology are intricately intertwined aspects of our existence, forging profound connections not only with the Divine but also with ourselves and with each other. Our purpose in crafting this pilgrimage is to facilitate the journey of translating this intellectual knowledge into lived experience.

Guided by the visionary insights of Jean Gebser, the pioneer of Integral Consciousness psychology, and drawing inspiration from the legacy of St. Francis of Assisi, as well as the timeless works of artists throughout history, we invite you to join us in cultivating a unique way of perceiving the world. This perspective will attune your senses to the subtle energies that interlace everything and everyone, revealing the divine presence that permeates both within us and among us. Gebser eloquently termed this profound understanding of life’s evolution and interconnectedness as “Integral Consciousness.” 

As the Tuscan sun gently caresses and soothes your body, we invite you to contemplate the marvels bestowed upon this land of spirit. Open your heart wide to the richness and diversity of interconnected life that this soil has nurtured for centuries. Allow your curious mind to wander through the ways in which the nature, poetry, art, and music of its people have nurtured and enriched the depths of the soul. In this journey, you will intimately experience Integral Consciousness and come to know the simple yet profound truth that Everything Is Sacred.

Will you join us on this extraordinary pilgrimage of heart and mind?

Total Trip Cost:  $3100 by check or PayPal/credit card

Cost includes: 10 night lodging, all ground transportation, taxes, gratuities, 10 breakfasts, 5 full lunches and 5 full dinners, tickets to Uffizi, Duomo, Academia Museums

Cost Excludes: Airfare to and from Italy, lodging before or after the trip, personal travel insurance (strongly encouraged), snacks, alcohol, bottled water for walks, personal items (batteries, sundries, etc.), all meals not noted above.

Deposit information, Installment Schedule, Refund and Cancellation Policy can be found on the registration form.

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Pilgrimage Presenters

Denise Tangney, D.Min., has been a member of the Guild for Spiritual Guidance since 1998 and is the chair of the Guild’s Engaged Wisdom Program.  She is a retired school district administrator, has a masters in Transcultural Studies and holds a doctorate in Leadership from Graduate Theological. She is a certified educator for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.  Denise is passionate about the vision of Teilhard de Chardin, the quantum world, gardening, storytelling and bringing the Guild’s vision to the world.  She lives in Long Beach, NY with her husband Chris.

Francesca Maria Banci, MBA, CFP has been a member of the Guild for Spiritual Guidance since 2020.  She was born to an Italian mother and father and currently practices both the Catholic and Quaker faiths.  Francesca resides in both Santa Fe, New Mexico and Stia, Italy.  Still working as a Certified Financial Planner and investment advisor in America, she enjoys bringing the magic, mythic and mystical realities of Italian art and culture, language, and spiritual life to Americans.

Luke Healy is the co-founder of Integral Christian Network, an endeavor to help further the loving evolution of Christianity and the world. He is passionate about pioneering innovation in forms of spiritual community, in gathering like-minded and like-hearted pilgrims on the spiritual journey and making mystical experience of God accessible in individual and collective practice. Luke is an avid writer, podcaster and workshop facilitator.  Luke lives in Kansas City with his wife and two boys.

For more information about the pilgrimage please email info@spiritualguidance.org.

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Sunday November 12, 2023
6:30 – 8:00 pm ET

All are welcome to this free event via Zoom. This film night is part of the Guild’s “Engaged Wisdom” series of book and film talks.  We will hold an open and casual discussion of the recent critically acclaimed and highly-awarded film, Everything Everywhere All at Once.

This film is an example of Jean Gebser’s last level of integral consciousness and aperspectivity. It also serves as a wonderful introduction to the next few workshops planned by The Guild for Spiritual Guidance through the Engaged Wisdom workshop series.  

Participants will be invited to watch the film on their own before our discussion. During the gathering, we will invite participants to share their thoughts and feelings about this multi-genre story and its moving themes as they intersect with multiple Guild areas of study: Spirituality, Psychology, Cosmology, and Community.

The discussion will be facilitated by Jean Blackie and LaNell Haydon, both Apprenticeship Program XXI graduates and also current Board members.

Registration has closed for this program.

Entasy: Teilhard’s Path to Mystical Prayer

Tuesday November 7, 2023 – 7:00 – 8:30 pm ET – Online Event

The Guild for Spiritual Guidance warmly invites you to explore our vision and mission of integration—that of Spirituality, Cosmology, Mysticism within Community. Lou Savary, a Teilhard lover and scholar, will share the concept of Enstasy: Teilhard’s Path to Mystical Prayer. Teilhard de Chardin was a Jesuit priest and paleontologist who had a profound vision of the cosmic Christ and the evolution of the universe. He was also a mystic who practiced a unique form of prayer that he called enstasy. Unlike ecstasy, which involves leaving the body and entering into God’s presence, enstasy means staying in the body and finding God in all things. Teilhard learned to pray in this way by integrating his scientific work, his religious faith, and his mystical intuition. He called this “contemplation in action” or “finding God in all things”, following the teachings of St. Ignatius and St. Paul. During our time together, we will explore how Teilhard developed his method of enstasy by looking at his personal prayers in The Divine Milieu, The Mass on the World, and his path to Omega through human effort. Please join us as we see how Teilhard’s enstasy can inspire us to live more fully in the present moment and to participate in the ongoing creation of our world.

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Presenter – Louis Savary

Louis M. Savary, Ph. D., S.T.D., holds one doctorate in mathematical statistics applied to the social sciences, and another in spirituality and theology. He was a Jesuit for 30 years. He has written and co-authored many books. He introduced the concepts of meditation with music cassettes and recorded over 50 of these for Credence Cassettes. He has served as adjunct faculty in spirituality at six different universities. For over 35 years he has taught courses in Teilhardian spirituality translating his very complex ideas into recognizable human experiences, especially for Teilhardian beginners.

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Registration Information: You will receive a Zoom link upon registration payment. Registration payment is available by PayPal or credit card below. For more information or to register by check, please email guildforspiritualguidance@gmail.com.

Program fee: $35.00
Registration for this program has closed.

A Wisdom House Speaker Series October 28-29, 2023

Immerse yourself in the sacred art of Dream Tending while on retreat! Dream Tending is an enlivened practice of accessing the wisdom of our dreams.  It’s a blend of Western and Indigenous ways of engaging with dreams, originated by Dr. Stephen Aizenstat, founder of Pacifica Graduate Institute.  The retreat is open to experienced Dream Tenders and participants who have not yet been introduced to Dream Tending, yet are courageous enough to jump in and practice the art with brief explanations and demonstrations by the retreat facilitator, Dr. Dianne Frost.

Presenter: Dr. Dianne Frost, Ph.D.

Dianne Frost Ph.D. is a Depth Psychologist who specializes in Dream Tending. She was mentored in Dream Tending by Dr. Stephen Aizenstat while completing her doctorate at Pacifica Graduate Institute. Her 2013 dissertation, “Engaging With the Imaginal :Dreamwork of Women in Recovery,” explores the potent effect of the technique. She delights in exploring imagination and consciousness, and her heart’s desire is to support love and wisdom in our world. Currently, Dr. Frost is an apprentice of The Guild for Spiritual Guidance.

Saturday, October 28, 2023 10:00 AM  – Sunday, October 29, 2023 4:00 PM

Wisdom House Retreat & Conference Center 229 East Litchfield Road Litchfield, CT, 06759

$85 | COMMUTER

$120 | SHARED BEDROOM WITH HALL BATH

$135 | SHARED ENSUITE

$135 | PRIVATE BEDROOM WITH HALL BATH

$195 | PRIVATE ENSUITE

Book Discussion: August 13, 2023 -The expanding universe from the big bang to the development of our consciousness has been the human creation story for millennia. Humans are not only physical beings, but cosmological beings. In Cosmogenesis: An Unveiling of the Expanding Universe, Brian Swimme describes how his research led him to disassemble and then reassemble his understanding of this story. Join us for a lively discussion with the Guild’s Evolutionary Cosmology Cultivator, Bernice Marie-Daly, Ph.D. We will be opening much of the evening to your questions regarding this fascinating topic and book, Cosmogenesis: An Unveiling of the Expanding Universe, written by Brian Swimme, Ph.D.

Presenter: Bernice Marie-Daly, Ph.D.

Bernice Marie-Daly, Ph.D., is an educator, author, retreat facilitator, and spiritual guide across wisdom traditions, focusing on the Universe Story and Sacred Activism. She has facilitated in-depth programming in women’s spirituality, justice-making, and the arts and is the Evolutionary Cosmology Cultivator with the Guild for Spiritual Guidance. Bernice holds degrees in Spirituality and Psychology, Counseling, and Philosophy and is a certified Core Energetics Instructor and Practitioner. Author of “Ecofeminism: Sacred Matter/Sacred Mother” (The American Teilhard Association) and co-author of Created in Her Image: Models of the Feminine Divine, Bernice taught interdisciplinary courses in Environmental Studies, Women’s Studies, and World Religions and is co-creator of Cosmic Entanglement Podcast.

This book discussion event will be held online, Sunday, August 13, 2023 from 6:30-8:00 p.m.
The Zoom link will be emailed to registrants one week before the event.

Fee: $10 Guild Members, $15 Non-members

Join us as we explore Teilhard’s vision of the evolution of consciousness through the lens of our everyday lives.  How do we ‘connect the dots’ between Teilhard’s vision and what we are experiencing in the wider culture?   How do you find hope for a future that instills meaning and purpose?  How do you deal with the myriad feelings this upheaval provokes?  What can we offer our children and grandchildren as they encounter the realities of climate change? 

 Will be held on four consecutive Tuesday evenings 

June 27, July 4, July 11, July 18
6:30 pm – 8:30 pm EST
via Zoom

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Presenter: Dr. Bernice Marie-Daly • Evolutionary Cosmology Cultivator

Bernice Marie-Daly, Ph.D., is an educator, author, retreat facilitator and spiritual guide across wisdom traditions, focusing on the Universe Story and Sacred Activism. She has facilitated in-depth programming in women’s spirituality, justice-making, and the arts and is the Evolutionary Cosmology Cultivator with the Guild for Spiritual Guidance. Bernice holds degrees in Spirituality and Psychology, Counseling, and Philosophy and is a certified Core Energetics Instructor and Practitioner. Author of “Ecofeminism: Sacred Matter/Sacred Mother” (The American Teilhard Association) and co-author of Created in Her Image: Models of the Feminine Divine, Bernice taught interdisciplinary courses in Environmental Studies, Women’s Studies, and World Religions and is co-creator of
Cosmic Entanglement Podcast.

Program Fee $50.00

**update March 20, 2024 – Pilgrimage is full**

April 2024 – The American artist Georgia O’Keeffe often reminded her visitors that “it takes time to see… like a relationship takes time.”    We will journey to Iona with the intention of taking the time to see; to see in layers and to see in different ways.  We will pay attention to those images that invite healing and curiosity.   

You are invited to journey to the isle of Iona to immerse yourself in the art of seeing; seeing that is deeper than retina and lens.  Our journey will be supported by the landscape and hospitality of Iona, and guided by the shared wisdom of the group, the Celtic pilgrims Brigid and Columba, and early 20^th century pilgrims Georgia O’Keeffe and John Muir, who reminds us that “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe” and “wherever we go in the mountains we find more than we seek.”

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Pilgrimage Itinerary

April 26, 2024  

Gather at Glasgow airport and journey by private coach to Oban.
Overnight at the Columba Hotel in Oban.

April 27, 2024  

Journey by ferry and bus to the Island of Iona.
Settle into our accommodations at Bishop’s House, Iona.

April 28, 2024 through May 3, 2024     

Engaging the pilgrimage theme of Mindful Seeing. Together and in solitude we will pause to ponder the
integration and interrelationship of those images that catch our mind’s eye and are held out to us in landscape, dreams, story, and poetry.  We will hear the stories of Celtic Spirituality and the lives of people drawn to Iona.  We will hike mindfully across the beautiful isle, open to seeing all that calls to us and responds to our presence.  We will hold in our hands some of the world’s most ancient rock and beautiful Iona marble and serpentine. We will journey by small boat to the island of Staffa with its volcanic basalt columns and cave that inspired Mendelssohn.   We will pay attention to the images created by the songs we sing and music we hear.   We will join the Abbey Community in traditional worship and experience worshipping with non-traditional images, language and silence.  There will be ample free time for wandering in solitude and for sharing with community. 

May 4, 2024

Journey from Iona by bus across Mull and by ferry to Oban
Overnight at the Columba Hotel in Oban

May 5, 2024  

Return to Glasgow airport by private coach arriving by noon

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Pilgrimage Leaders

The Rev. Cari Keith is an experienced pilgrimage leader and passionate pilgrimage participant. She is an ordained Pastor and Spiritual Director, currently serving as chair of the board of the Guild for Spiritual Guidance.  Cari engages faith practice through an integrated lens of depth psychology, interfaith spirituality, ecology and community.  Her educational background includes New Brunswick Seminary, the Guild for Spiritual Guidance, Hartford Seminary, and numerous conferences and classes. 

John Keith is an environmental expert who has traveled and hiked the world, working on environmental problems and studying global ecological issues. He is an accomplished guitar and vocal musician in the American folk and spiritual music tradition.  He currently is actively engaged with several environmental NGOs working on environmental challenges in poor countries as well as local environmental issues.

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Pilgrimage Cost

Shared Room: $2500
Private Room: $3000

Includes all ground transportation in Scotland, taxes, gratuities, 7-nights on Iona, 2-nights in Oban, and 3 meals per day with the exclusion of 4 lunches.

Not covered in the pilgrimage cost:

Airfare to and from Scotland, lodging before or after the trip, personal travel insurance (strongly encouraged), meals and snacks not noted above, all alcohol, bottled water for walks, and personal items (batteries, gifts, sundries, etc.)  Additional gratuity for the Bishop’s House staff is most welcome. 

Pilgrimage:  An exterior journey, engaged with the intent of growing more aware, more conscious, more fully present to the divine mystery, the numinous, the presence of God and others in our lives.   Pilgrimage offers time, space, place, and opportunity to practice seeing.  It invites the pause that opens the heart to paying attention in ways that lead to broader and deeper seeing of all life and living.  Being fully present pulls us out of ourselves in ways that enable us to see and experience connections that previously appeared to be separations.  Rachel Carson writes: “Your mind is in its most supple, creative state when it is off leash…we need to create more off leash space….We have just filled every waking moment with stimulation and input, and you need time to digest, to [reflect], to think and create new thoughts…we need time to integrate those ideas into our larger narrative and – it is just such a great thing to create that space to think, [to reflect, to ponder].” 

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• Are you seeking a spiritual community that practices listening deeply to oneself, one another, the Earth, and the Divine?
• Are you ready to look at yourself honestly, to spend time in contemplation, and to reflect on your experiences through writing and spiritual companioning in order to experience a shift in personal outlook?
• Do you desire to learn about the vocations that led our elders, like Teilhard de Chardin, Carl Jung, and the mystics to deeper engagement with, and recognition of, the interconnectedness of all life? 
• Do you want to become more aware of the ways in which you have been called and empowered to bring contemplative/spiritual change to our world through sacred response? 

The Supervision Program begins in November 2022

Spring Retreat 2024
Everyday Mysticism With Thomas Merton – A Weekend With Author Sophronia Scott

April 5 – 7 , 2024
Wisdom House Litchfield CT

A Graduate Guild semi-annual weekend retreat with our presenter Sophfronia Scott, author of the book The Seeker and the Monk: Everyday Conversations with Thomas Merton (Broadleaf Books, 2021). This special event is open to the public!

A Graduate Guild semi-annual weekend retreat with our presenter Sophfronia Scott, author of the book The Seeker and the Monk: Everyday Conversations with Thomas Merton (Broadleaf Books, 2021). This special event is sponsored by the Graduate Circle of The Guild for Spiritual Guidance and is open to everyone!

 Mysticism is often viewed as the privileged experience of a few chosen, holy individuals. However, the Jesuit priest and theologian Karl Rahner wrote about “everyday mysticism,” and Carmelite Sister Ruth Burrows described the mystical life simply as “God touching the depths of our being.” God is closer than we think–to all of us. But how can we become more aware of when the divine is near? We’ll explore everyday mysticism as life events filled with God’s unmistakable presence. Sharing Thomas Merton’s experiences and her own, Sophfronia will help attendees notice, identify, and appreciate mystical encounters in their everyday lives.

Date: Friday April 5, 2024 at 4:00 pm to Sunday April 7, 2024 at 1:00 pm
Location: In person at Wisdom House Retreat Center in Litchfield, Connecticut and online via Zoom

Sophfronia Scott is the founding director of the Alma College MFA in Creative Writing. She grew up in Lorain, Ohio, a hometown she shares with author Toni Morrison. Her father was a Mississippi-born steelworker who never learned how to read and her mother was a stay-at-home mom who always made sure there were books in the house. She holds a BA in English from Harvard and an MFA in writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Sophfronia spent a big chunk of her career as a writer and editor for Time and People magazines where she developed the uncanny ability to create order out of chaos by whittling massive amounts of facts and ideas into a single cohesive form. Learn more about Sophronia Scott at https://sophfronia.com/

More information about Wisdom House Retreat Center can be found here.
Registration is closed.

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FALL GRADUATE CIRCLE RETREAT 2023
EVOLUTIONARY RITUALS FOR OUR SPIRITUAL EMERGENCE

Living in the midst of this time of mass planetary change, a new sacred story from Science invites us to live out of and in cooperation with the still unfolding story of inter-dependent wholeness. Evolutionary Rituals are novel vessels of this new story and its potential to aid our emergence, both as individuals, and as a species living, as Thomas Berry wrote, in mutuality with Earth. For the retreat weekend, Carol Kilby designed a program to support the continuing journey of the Graduate Circle program. Drawing on her upcoming new book offering more than 30 Evolutionary Daily Practices, Special Occasion Ceremonies, and Rites of Passage, Carol will companion us through an exploration of how Evolutionary Spirituality reinvents relevant personal and cultural rituals for this time of peril and promise, mass and rapid change.

Presenter bio: Carol Kilby – Ritualist, writer, speaker, teacher, storyteller, initiator, and evolutionary elder, Kilby loves big picture ideas and little moments of awe. Being human, she believes, is all about evolving and emerging, imagining and co-creating.

September 22, 2023 at 4:00 pm to September 23, 2023 at 7:00 pm EST- Online

Registration is closed.

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ll Graduate Guild Retreat, September 23-25, 2022
″The Art of Seeing” at Wisdom House in Litchfield, CT

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands but seeing with ‘new eyes.’ ”
-Marcel Proust 

Imagine a world where you could see with “new eyes.” The Art of Seeing with Carmen Lund is an art-making class with a spiritual objective. In this approach you are led to take a fresh look at familiar things. Using a process of discovery and paying attention is a game changer. Nothing will ever appear the same as before. Nothing will be mundane. 

The natural will become miraculous and the everyday will be unique.You will develop a fresh sense of awe, wonder and gratitude for the natural world and God’s movement in the everyday.. 

“Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.” Pablo Picasso. 

Over the weekend, you will be led in a series of exercises to express, elaborate and manifest everyday mundane reality and transform it into something special. 

Carmen Lund is a graduate with the Guild for Spiritual Guidance (AP XX) and a visual artist whose paintings have been exhibited and collected in the US, Asia, South America and Europe. She also teaches painting and is a transformational life coach. The common thread in each of the areas is her creative approach to problem-solving both on and off the canvas.

RECONNECTING TO THE SPIRIT THROUGH THE SENSES

Presented by Leslie Valentine

Our senses are the first gifts from our creator; endowments with endless opportunities to connect, reconnect and be at one with our source. But how often do we ignore them, take them for granted and fail to see their pathways to inner wisdom and connectivity? Join us this weekend to reestablish and rekindle our sense pathways and our relationships with our spirit and each other!

Open to all Guild Graduates
April 22-24, 2022
Wisdom House, Litchfield, CT

Gather at 3:30 on Friday April 22 and leave at 1:00 on Sunday EST

Cost:
The registration page will charge you a $100 deposit. The balance of your ticket will be due at the time of the event. For questions, please contact Sue Robinson: graduate.guild@gmail.com
$350 Full Weekend [Private Room & meals]    A
$300 Full Weekend [Shared Room & meals]     B
$250 Partial Weekend [One Night Shared Room & meals]  C
$225.00 Commuter   D

About the Presenter

Leslie Valentine is a graduate with the Guild for Spiritual Guidance (AP XX), where she concentrated her second year practicum in small group ministry. An Education for Ministry (EfM) graduate, she has been a certified mentor for over ten years and is currently mentoring a 36-week seminar group in Huntington, New York. In the Episcopal Church, she is a lay Eucharist minister and has served on Cursillo teams. Leslie is also a classical singer, performing frequently in the tri-state area, and an avid traveler, having visited all seven continents! 

Fall 2021

Presented by Dr. Fanny Brewster

Our American collective now finds itself more frequently peering with conscious awareness into the shadow of American racial relations and racism than ever before in history. The Civil War brought us into the shadowed constellation of our American racial complex. We are more than one hundred years beyond that moment of anguish and liberation for our country. Yet, the psychological woundedness of raciality continues today. Our 21st century journey necessitates making transparent the suffering of the African Holocaust, while shining a light of consciousness onto the darkness of what we have been unable or unwilling to see through the centuries. Now, we will join together in community to share moments of recollection of the suffering of our racialized American psyche, while creating a vision for how we might begin to heal.

Open to all Guild Graduates
September 17-19, 2021, via Zoom
The retreat will begin at 4:00 p.m. EST on Friday, September 17, and run until Sunday, September 19 at noon EST.
Cost: $100

About the Presenter

Fanny Brewster, Ph.D., is a Jungian analyst and professor at Pacifica Graduate Institute. She is the author of three books: The Racial Complex: Jungian Perspectives on Culture and Race; African Americans and Jungian Psychology: Leaving the Shadows; and Archetypal Grief: Slavery’s Legacy of Intergenerational Child Loss.

Spring 2021

The Radical Path of the Sacred Feminine

Presented by Bernice Marie-Daly

The Radical Path of the Sacred Feminine an emerging story of the evolution of consciousness manifested through and within the archetype of the Sacred Feminine.   She has been with us from the beginning as a primordial image of Sacred Presence expressed through myriad cultures throughout the ages; we can imagine Her emergence today as “Mother Earth,” boldly challenging our way of life in the face of an existential threat to our very existence.  Sourced though meditation, deep listening, personal experiences and dream imagery; awakened to the realities of unrelenting social upheaval and global devastation, we gather to envision “Mother Earth” guiding us toward a humanity capable of an evolved Love transforming us into “the new human” of the Ecozoic Age.  

Open to all Guild Graduates
April 23-25, 2021 via Zoom
The retreat will begin at 4:00 EST on Friday, April 23, and run until Sunday, April 25 at noon EST.
Cost $100
Registration closes April 21, 2021
*Artwork by Becky Nielsen, XIX

About the Presenter

Bernice Marie-Daly, AP III, has facilitated numerous retreats, workshops, and programs on spirituality and the Divine Feminine.  Most especially during this critical time of spiritual crises, her intention is to facilitate processes that open our hearts and minds to the ways the Sacred Feminine is transforming and guiding our passage into the Ecozoic Era. 

Bernice lives in Connecticut, enjoys swimming, mahjongg, and leisurely walks by LI Sound.  She has four grandchildren, two in Hawaii and two in Vermont.

Fall 2020

The Secret at The Heart of The World: Teilhard de Chardin on the Evolution of Love

A Guild Graduate Retreat with Louis Savary via Zoom

Join us for the Guild’s fall Graduate retreat this September with Louis Savary. He will take us on a journey that will help us to better understand Teilhard’s life and to clearly see and understand some of his most complex ideas and discoveries. We will begin by learning about what propelled Teilhard to go off on a search to find “the secret at the heart of reality” and what he found as a result. We will also learn about the laws of evolution that Teilhard formulated, such as Union Differentiates, and how we can use these laws to take evolution to a higher level of consciousness. In addition, we will find out how Teilhard’s ideas about what it meant to be a human being differed from the thinking of Aristotle and Descartes and why.

We look forward to seeing each of you in the Guild family this fall on Zoom! Whether you are a novice or an expert on the study of Teilhard, you are sure to gain deeper insight and appreciation for his transformative work.

Cost
$100 for both days

Registration
Opens August 1, 2020
​
Contact
​Sue Robinson, Graduate Retreat Coordinator with any questions:

Join us for the Guild’s fall Graduate retreat this September with Louis Savary. He will take us on a journey that will help us to better understand Teilhard’s life and to clearly see and understand some of his most complex ideas and discoveries. We will begin by learning about what propelled Teilhard to go off on a search to find “the secret at the heart of reality” and what he found as a result. We will also learn about the laws of evolution that Teilhard formulated, such as Union Differentiates, and how we can use these laws to take evolution to a higher level of consciousness. In addition, we will find out how Teilhard’s ideas about what it meant to be a human being differed from the thinking of Aristotle and Descartes and why.

We look forward to seeing each of you in the Guild family this fall on Zoom! Whether you are a novice or an expert on the study of Teilhard, you are sure to gain deeper insight and appreciation for his transformative work.

About The Presenter

Louis M. Savary, received a degree in spiritual theology from Catholic University of America. He has lectured, led workshops, taught classes and written books about Teilhard’s spirituality. His goal has been making Teilhard’s ideas practical and useful, especially for those who find his ideas difficult to understand and apply in their own lives.