Annual Meeting & Spring Retreat: The Collective and Personal Shadow – Jungian Strand
May 8, 2026 – May 9, 2026
Online via Zoom
Friday’s session will have our Guild circle, a pause for dinner, the Guild’s Annual Meeting, and small group conversations (aka “quads”). Friday is free and open to anyone who registers. If you wish to only attend Friday’s gathering and/or the Annual Meeting, scroll down and click the “Register here for Friday only” button.
Saturday continues the retreat with an exploration of Jung’s concept of the Collective and Personal Shadow by an expert in the field. Elements of sacred community will be experienced by deep ‘Guild’ sharing and break-out rooms. Through our community encounter we expect that participants will experience the meaning, purpose, and sacred community typical of a Guild retreat. We intend to explore how our shadow impacts our spiritual lives!
Program Description:
Considering the world we live in, this program aims to bring awareness to our collective and personal shadow. Using Carl G. Jung’s understanding of shadow will help to shine a light in places we haven’t explored before. We will provide a link to Dr. Petrow’s podcast, The Healer with a Thousand Faces; episode 4: Shadows on the Path to watch in advance of the retreat.
Presenter: The Rev. Dr. Michael Petrow, AP XVIII
Presenter Bio:
Mike Petrow PhD is a seminary drop out who instead earned his PhD in comparative mythology and Jungian Depth Psychology. Mike has worked as a pastor, a mental health worker, and a theater chaplain. He’s a teacher, spiritual director, a certified grief and trauma counselor, is the lead content developer at the Center for Action and Contemplation and is the host of The Everything Belongs podcast with Fr Richard Rohr, as well as The Healer with a Thousand Faces. His passion is how the ancient and contemporary tools of the world’s great contemplative traditions help us turn our wounds into wisdom.
REGISTRATION INFORMATION
Date(s) and Time(s):
Friday, May 8, 2026 – 4-8 p.m. ET (Free)
Saturday, May 9, 2026 – 8:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. ET
Online via Zoom
Cost: $100.00
Registration Deadline: May 7, 2026
This retreat is for Guild Graduates, Cultivators, their friends and family.
For more information please contact: Dorothée R. Caulfield, AP XIX, Board Member, Graduate Guild Co-Coordinator – dorotheeguild@gmail.com
Let’s weave ourselves into something new.
We are living in a time that asks something profound of humanity.
The climate is changing. Cultures are shifting. Long-held assumptions about progress, growth, and certainty are dissolving before our eyes.
Yet within every time of uncertainty lies the possibility of renewal.
The Imagine Retreat, September 16-20, 2026, Nova Scotia, Canada is an invitation to pause together—to listen more deeply to the Earth, to wisdom traditions, to science, to poetry, and to one another.
For five days we gather on the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia to explore how science, spirit, and human creativity might come together in service of a more compassionate and life-giving future.
Themes & Focus
- Ecological and spiritual consciousness
- Dialogue between cosmology and science
- Indigenous wisdom and land-based spirituality
- Imagination as a tool for building new worlds
Thomas Merton, Celtic Spirituality and the Imagination
Pilgrimage to Iona
September 11 – 20, 2026
Pilgrimage Invitation
You are invited to travel to the Isle of Iona to immerse yourself in a conversation between Thomas Merton, Celtic spirituality, and the Imagination; to pay attention to the ways these wisdom voices invite us to grow more fully into living with greater mercy, courage and action toward all people and ourselves.
Pilgrimage Itinerary
Two pre-travel zoom preparation gatherings – dates to be announced
September 11, 2026
Gather at Glasgow airport and journey by private coach to Oban.
Overnight at the Columba Hotel in Oban.
September 12, 2026
Journey by ferry and bus to the Island of Iona.
Settle into our accommodations at Bishop’s House, Iona.
September 13 – 19, 2026
Engaging the pilgrimage theme of Thomas Merton, Celtic Spirituality and the Imagination. Together, we
will hear the story of Thomas Merton from Merton scholar and writer Sophfronia Scott, and we will walk
the Isle and hear the stories of its rich Celtic history from pilgrimage leader Cari Keith. Together and in
solitude, we will pause to ponder the ways in which imagination and image enable us to live more fully
aware of our integration and interconnection with all creation. 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 Fingal’s cave – Mendelssohn’s inspiration for the
Hebrides Overture. We will pay attention to the images created by the beauty around us, the songs we
sing, the conversations we share, and the words we write. You will be invited to join the Abbey
Community in traditional worship and encouraged to experience worshipping with non-traditional
images, language and silence. There will be ample free time for wandering in solitude and for sharing
with community.
September 20, 2026
Journey from Iona by bus across Mull and by ferry to Oban
Return to Glasgow airport by private coach arriving by 4:00 pm
Pilgrimage Leaders
Sophfronia Scott is a novelist, essayist, and leading contemplative thinker. Her book The Seeker and the
Monk: Everyday Conversations with Thomas Merton won the 2021 Thomas Merton “Louie” Award from the International Thomas Merton Society. She lives in East Lansing, Michigan and holds a BA in English from Harvard and an MFA in writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is completing a PhD in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University. Her latest book is Wild, Beautiful, and Free, a historical novel set during the Civil War. Sophfronia’s other books include Unforgivable Love, Love’s Long Line, and This Child of Faith: Raising a Spiritual Child in a Secular World, co-written with her son Tain. Sophfronia is the founding director of Alma College’s Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Creative Writing, a low-residency graduate program based in Alma, Michigan.
Cari Keith is an experienced pilgrimage leader and passionate pilgrimage participant. She is an ordained
Minister and Spiritual Director who engages faith practice through an integrated lens of depth psychology, interspirituality, ecology and community. Cari’s spiritual practices include dream work, writing and paying attention to the awe and mystery of life. Her educational background includes New Brunswick Seminary, the Guild for Spiritual Guidance, and Hartford Seminary.
John Keith is an accomplished guitar and vocal musician who will travel with us. He is an environmental
scientist with deep global knowledge of environmental issues, from large nations to small islands. He is
actively engaged with several environmental NGOs working on environmental challenges in poor countries.
Pilgrimage Cost
Shared Room: $3800
Private Room: $4100
Includes all ground transportation in Scotland, taxes, gratuities, 7-nights on Iona, 1-night in Oban, and 3
meals per day with the exclusion of 3 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.).
In The Seeker and the Monk, Sophfronia Scott writes, Prayer is a mystery, with so many paths to walk, so
many branches of communication, so many pools of wonder. But it’s also like you and me, Thomas,
standing on the edge of one of the pools near Gethsemani. You’re pointing to a spot: dive in there. We just have to begin.
Come and dive in with us. Come join us in beginning!
For registration information and questions please contact Cari Keith:
Phone: 201-321-7216 – Email: cari.keith@gmail.com
Past Retreats
“Looking at Mysticism” with The Rev. Matthew Wright, former Guild Cultivator
How do the mystics help us navigate the chaos of our times?
A Fall Graduate Retreat
open to Guild Graduates, Cultivators, and Friends
October 3, 4, and 5, 2025
via Zoom
REGISTRATION HAS CLOSED FOR THIS EVENT
“Looking at Mysticism” with The Rev. Matthew Wright, who is a recent Guild Presenter/Cultivator of the Mystics strand. He will explore with us how the mystics help us navigate the chaos of our times.
This retreat will be an inter-spiritual exploration of mysticism by an expert in the field. Elements of sacred community will be experienced by deep ‘Guild’ sharing and break-out rooms.
Through our community encounter, we expect participants to experience the meaning, purpose, and sense of sacred community typical of a Guild retreat. We intend to expand this exploration to examine how we are all mystics.
Our Presenter
The Rev. Matthew Wright grew up in Western North Carolina, wandering into an Episcopal Church for the first time in 2003—with no idea of where that small act would lead! He received his B.A. in Religious Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and M.Div. from Virginia Theological Seminary. Matthew was ordained to the priesthood in September 2012 and has served as priest-in-charge at St. Gregory’s since October 2014.
In addition to his part-time ministry with St. Gregory’s, Matthew serves as a retreat leader and teaches for Northeast Wisdom and the Contemplative Society, non-profits dedicated to the renewal of the Christian Wisdom tradition. He is a vowed Companion in the Rivendell Community, which has a local Chapter based at St. Gregory’s. Matthew lives with his wife and two cats in Woodstock.
REGISTRATION HAS CLOSED FOR THIS EVENT