Book Discussion on Race and the Cosmos, January 22, 2023 at 6 pm EST.
All Guild graduates are invited to discuss theologian Barbara A. Holmes’ book, Race and the Cosmos: An Invitation to View the World Differently, on Sunday January 22, 2023 at 6 pm EST. This fascinating book explores the question of what it means to be human through the intersecting lenses of the cosmos, indigenous wisdom, unfolding scientific learning, and divine love. It offers ideas that help dismantle old racial constructs and give hope for new ways of embracing anti-racism in our cultural context.
This event is closed.
Carol Kilby, author of Evolutionary Dancer: Out, In, and on the Fringe of the Church, will present this first Engaged Wisdom course of the new year.
Carol notes that this evolutionary moment calls for the rewilding of our story! The stories of nationhood, religion, and culture have separated us from our larger selves and our relationship to the universe and the earth.
In this time of planetary crisis, it is time for an exodus, time for a new story. Inspired by Sadie Allen Moon’s observation that Jung saw the source of every society’s renewal in individuals whenever they navigate beyond the walls of their culture and bring back to it some novel insight for the collective’s development, the course will investigate how evolutionary rituals, personal practices, and rites of passages can ground our story in the ways of cosmos and nature empowering us to consciously and positively step into the earth’s dance of transformation.
In addition, participants will discover evolutionary rituals that draw on climate science, new cosmology, ecology, and an evolutionary spirituality that re-member our wild and wonder-full selves. Through rewilding our stories, rituals, and selves in the dance of becoming, individuals who contribute to the evolution of the collective.
The course is open to all, both Guild members and non-members. The fee is $30.
This course is now closed.
PRACTICING THE PAUSE — HOLY CURIOSITY
Pilgrimage to Iona. August 12-21, 2022
This Pilgrimage to Iona
This Pandemic year challenged all of us to change our routines and expectations. For some, that meant isolation and more time for reading, movies, house organizing, hobbies, walking. For some that meant, days of being ill and/or dealing with the fear and anxiety of becoming ill, or caring for a loved one who was ill or newly isolated in an elder care facility. For some that meant learning to work alone from home or navigating an on-site job with new rules, regulations and protective gear. For some it meant learning a lot of new technology in order to stay connected to worshipping communities, book groups, family and friends. For all us, some change in what was once considered the routine day-to-day activity of life, needed to be re-negotiated and re-navigated. For many of us there was little time to ponder the changes that were swirling around us as individuals, a nation, and a global community.
Pondering the changes, losses and revelations of this past year will be essential to our growth and well-being. Paying attention to all that emerged in these months will help to guide us into new ways of being in community together. This is not a time to long for a “return to normal” but a challenging opportunity to imagine moving into “a new normal.” This call to new imagining, is a process that will take more than the next few months. Just as it will take scientists years to gather the data that will lead to greater understanding of how viruses function, it will take the human psyche time as well, to process the changes being called forth.
You are invited to a time of pilgrimage; to a time of processing, holding and listening to all that bubbled up during this pandemic year and to what is yet to emerge. You are invited to a place of pilgrimage; to a place that has been receptive to the human spiritual, meaning making quest for centuries; a place that invites the intention and attention needed to reveal where we are being called to extend ourselves and our thinking out into the world. You are invited to an act of pilgrimage; to lay aside a need for answers, and allow curiosity, yes, even holy curiosity, to nurture and nourish your spirit. Please plan to set aside time to join us on a Pilgrimage to Iona in the summer of 2022. The hospitality of this wee island community will care for your physical needs, and the gifts of sea, sky, stone, and sun will nurture your spirit.
This program is now closed.
Join Guild members and others at the Mountain Retreat Center in Highlands, North Carolina, for a three-day, in-person workshop this June on Aging as a Spiritual Practice. Guild member Paulette Robinson will lead the workshop, which is co-sponsored by Wholeness of the Heart, Sage-ing International, and the Guild for Spiritual Guidance.
Aging is a time of harvesting and bringing the sacred into life. It is a time when the external forces of life make way for an internal focus on life’s purpose and mining life experiences for meaning. Life itself becomes a reflective space. When lived purposefully, aging becomes a spiritual practice. In this course, participants will explore tools for internal and external spiritual practice that can serve this internal movement. They will create meaning-making rituals, deepen meditative states, make intentional sacred spaces, and more.
About the presenter:
Paulette Robinson is a certified Sage-ing Leader, graduate of the Guild for Spiritual Guidance, and experienced retreat and workshop facilitator. For the past 20 years, Paulette has facilitated healing as a shamanic practitioner using multiple energy modalities and practices. She has certifications in spiritual and elder coaching, family constellations and ancestral trauma, alchemical alignment (somatic trauma release), past-life regressions, and mediumship.
Four days: June 23, 2022, 1:00 p.m. to June 26, 2022 (1PM)
In person at the Mountain Retreat Center, Highlands, North Carolina
Cost:
$500 early bird rate before May 1, 2022
$555 regular rate after May 1, 2022
Registration closes on June 9, 2022
Room and Board Cost for lodging and all meals:
Double Room: $315 (for all meals and lodging for four days and three nights)
Single Room: $455 (for all meals and lodging for four days and three nights)
For questions, contact the Mountain Retreat Center
This course is now closed.
Good News from the Universe for Bad Times: Crisis, Transformation, and Deep Trust from a Cosmic Perspective
Join us as we reflect on the universal nature of crisis, change, and transformation as well as the resources available for cultivating resilience and trust during difficult times. Drawing on insights from modern cosmology and the evolutionary perspective, we find sources of support, renewal, and guidance that can sustain us through the challenges we face personally, culturally, and globally at this critical time.
About the Presenter, Steve Martin:
Astronomer, educator, and author, Steve Martin has taught astronomy, physics, and consciousness studies at colleges, universities, and learning centers across the U.S. for over 25 years. He is currently one of the lead instructors for the Deeptime Network, and he also consults at the Center for Spiritual Emergence in Asheville, NC.
Three virtual sessions, Mondays, 6—8:30 p.m. ET beginning April 18, 2022
The cost is $75.
The course is now closed.
Session 1 – Monday, April 18, 2022
Session 2 – Monday April 25, 2022
Session 3 – Monday, May 2, 2022
This Engaged Wisdom course is now closed.
A Look at Hope Through the Lens of Film
Artists and spiritual writers through the millennia remind us how the capacity to hope keeps us human. The Guild will explore this important topic with a series of films, from November to April.
Through viewing and discussing three films that evoke feelings surrounding the resiliency of ‘hope,” participants will explore how the promise of life and freedom can break down the limitations of self-sufficiency and fear. The presenter, Father Larry Lewis, will conduct the discussions following the films along the lines of group spiritual direction.
Tuesday, November 9, 2021, 7 p.m. ET – Lars and the Real Girl (US)
Tuesday, December 7, 2021, 7 p.m. ET – The Lives of Others (German)
Tuesday, February 15, 2022, 7 p.m. ET – Jojo Rabbit (US)
Tuesday, March 15, 2022, 7 p.m. ET – Pig (US)
Tuesday, April 12, 2022, 7 p.m. ET – Coda (US)
About the presenter, Rev. Larry Lewis:
Father Larry Lewis has facilitated film discussions since 2004. The author of The Misfit: Haunting the Human – Unveiling the Divine, Father Lewis received his Ph.D. in spirituality from Duquesne University, and has been a friend of the Guild since 1997. A Maryknoll missionary, he spent many years in China and now serves in the Maryknoll Office of Society Personnel.
Mark your calendars for:
This Engaged Wisdom film course is now closed.
Befriending Dreams Seminar
The Befriending Dreams Seminar will explore the realm of dreams and how we can become better acquainted with them and the messages they offer. The presenter, Dr. Dianne Frost, will introduce us to the lively art of “dream tending” and social dreaming. In dream tending, dreamer and dream tender invite a past dream to become animated in present time and offer its wisdom. Dream tending touches personal, collective, and environmental understandings. Social dreaming springs from the dreams of groups of people and provides a way of reflecting on shared wisdom. It may reveal conditions and possible directions to take for couples, families, businesses, neighborhoods, cities, and even countries.
Dianne Frost, Ph.D. is a depth psychologist who has long been intrigued by sleeping dreams, waking dreams, and the wisdom gleaned from dreams of any kind. She is an advocate for the expansion of consciousness and love in our world, so her passions are to educate and facilitate people’s growth in healing their hearts, expanding their insights, and offering their love and gifts to the world. Sharing her experience with dreamwork is one way she expresses her passions.
Offered on six Mondays from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. March 7, 14, 21, 28, April 4, 11. The cost is $125.
This seminar is now closed.
Writing Our Mythic Stories and Spiritual Autobiographies
We all have stories. Some stories define us. Some may point to our purpose in this life. Some may describe critical turning points. Some are welcomed as mysterious, challenging, explanatory, and mythic. Others are painful and tend to be repressed. Our stories speak to how we experience life and the ego persona we have cultivated. And those that change the way we live are called our sacred stories.
In this workshop we will compile our sacred stories to make a spiritual autobiography. We will notice how our stories reflect the mythology of our times and how we live into them. We will identify unconscious archetypical myths that have guided and navigated our soul.
St. Francis of Assisi prayed, “Who are you and why am I here?” By examining our sacred stories, we may find the answer. Each week we will focus on topics that build upon the prior week.
Week 1 – The Mythic Power of Our Sacred Stories
Week 2 – Discovering Our Personal Mythology
Week 3 – Identifying Our Soul Archetypes
Week 4 – Sharing Our Sacred Stories and Their Myth
About the presenter, Daniel Robinson:
Daniel Robinson is a professor, spiritual director, retreat leader, and lover of souls. His current passion is the mentoring of faculty, students, and pilgrims through the art of soul companioning by writing our personal stories, myths and spiritual autobiographies. He has served as a veteran and mentors Wounded Warriers.
Daniel is a member of the Northeast Guild for Spiritual Direction. He lives in Maine with his lovely wife, Heather.
To register after 6 p.m. on January 29, 2022, please contact Denise Tangney:
tangney.guild@gmail.com or (516)-313-6217
4 Sessions, Sundays from 2-4:00 p.m. EST beginning January 30, 2022
List of dates: 1/30/22, 2/6/22, 2/13/22, 2/20/22
The cost is $100
This course is now closed.
At the Intersection of Science and Spirituality: Contemplative Consciousness and the Zest for Life
Each of us, from our own place in the world, desires to be an engaged participant in the unfolding of our world, while at the same time seeking meaning and authenticity. Come, explore the wonder-laden mysteries of the Universe; their capacity to lure us into contemplative practice; and the subsequent imperative to act with integrity in creating a better world.
Session 1: 6/13/21 5-7 P.M. EST
Session 2: 6/18/21 5-7 P.M. EST
Session 3: 6/19/21 5-7 P.M. EST
Cost: $150
This course is now closed.
Engaged Transformational Listening
Our listening skills impact our experience of ourselves, others and our world. Most often we hear what we are wired to hear, not necessarily what is actually being shared. This program explores the dynamics of listening, learning about our own ‘automatic’ listening with the intention of becoming aware of what impede or deepen our connections. At the conclusion of the 5 week program you will have skills to shift one or more listening habits. You will develop skills to listen with love and compassion for yourself and others.
Follow-up
Listening with the Natural World
Nature Based Listening
About the presenter, Kate Duncan:
Kate Duncan is an AP XIX graduate and active Guild member. She was one of the original women trailblazers in the technology industry. Kate’s experience in management for IBM seeded a bold adventure in establishing her own leadership development business serving many Fortune 500 companies. Kate’s passion and commitment is to foster deep connections between people. She is committed to sharing her expertise, often pro-bono, as her Sacred Response to the world. Originally from the Pacific Northwest, Kate now resides in Connecticut.
5 Sessions, Thursdays from 10-11:30 AM beginning March 4, 2021
List of dates: 3/4/21, 3/11/21, 3/18/21, 3/25/21, 4/1/21
Registration closes February 25, 2021
The cost is $50
This course is now closed.