September 5-7
Faithful, Effective Work for Peace and Justice
4 th Annual Retreat for Clerks and Members of Peace and Social Concerns Committees

American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), Quaker Earthcare Witness, Quaker Initiative to End Torture, and Pendle Hill invite you to a weekend retreat. Refresh your spirit for a renewed commitment to a world free from want and war. Learn from each other and representatives of Quaker organizations that daily seek peace, justice, and sustainability. Share ideas, information, and strategies for a year of faithful – and effective – work for peace and justice. Consider:

• How can we most effectively focus the resources of our meeting? Leverage them through cooperation with others in our community?
• What resources can national and regional Quaker organizations offer to help educate, organize, and energize our meetings and the wider communities of which we are a part?
• What is our role when our meeting is divided over a peace or justice issue?
• What sustains us spiritually as we grapple with a full plate of issues – all of which seem urgent and worthy of our energies?

Come prepared to share your successes and challenges during this revitalizing conference.

Presenters will include:

Mary Lord, former Assistant General Secretary for Peace and Conflict Resolution, AFSC

 

Kathy Guthrie , Field Program Secretary, FCNL

 

Clinton Pettus, Director of the Mid-Atlantic Region, AFSC

 

 

Scilla Wahrhaftig, Program Director for Pennsylvania , AFSC; Quaker Initiative to End Torture

Joan Broadfield, Peace and Justice Coordinator, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting

 

 

Kristina Keefe-Perry, Steering Committee of Quaker Earthcare Witness

 

 

 

$200/shared room; $240/private room; $120/commuter

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September 12-14
Alternatives to Violence Project ( AVP ) Advanced Training
An extended weekend with Jorge Arauz, Gail Newbold, and Carolyn Schodt

The AVP Advanced workshop builds from the AVP Basic. Themes emerge from the group and may include bullying, subtle violence, fear, oppression – factors that get in the way of nonviolence. As with the Basic, we work to build community, communication, and conflict resolution skills in affirmative and creative ways using exercises, roleplay activities, and the concept of Transforming Power. This workshop is open to anyone who has completed the Basic workshop. It meets the requirements of AVPUSA, Inc.

Jorge Arauz was born in Ecuador and has been involved with AVP since 1994. Active as a facilitator in and out of prisons in the Philadelphia area, Jorge also has been deeply involved in AVP in Latin America, nurturing the young AVP community in Ecuador , helping with an incipient AVP program in Mexico , and bringing AVP to Peru and Bolivia . Through Friends Peace Teams, he has used AVP to support the peace communities in Colombia . Jorge is a member of Chestnut Hill Monthly Meeting (PA).

Gail Newbold facilitates AVP in the Chester County (PA) area. She supports the AVP work of the African Great Lakes region as Philadelphia Yearly Meeting representative to Friends Peace Teams and facilitates Quaker youth activities including international delegations and "Summer Quaker Fun Days." Gail is a member of London Grove Meeting (PA) and serves as Quarterly Meeting facilitator. She has been a legal advocate and counselor on domestic violence and education for youth with special needs.

Carolyn Schodt coordinates the AVP workshops at Graterford, a maximum security prison, where AVP is celebrating its 20th year. Carolyn has facilitated AVP workshops at Huntingdon and Mahanoy prisons and Germantown Friends School, and worked with Sr. Margaret McKenna and Kaki Sjogren at New Jerusalem Recovery Community in North Philadelphia. She is a member of Chestnut Hill Meeting (PA), and sees her work with the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Spiritual Formation Program as closely related to her AVP work.

$200/shared room; $240/private room; $120/commuter

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September 19-21
Lives of Service
A Working Retreat at Pendle Hill

Join the Pendle Hill maintenance team and spiritual nurturer Bob Denison for a weekend of fun, service, and fellowship around work projects to prepare Pendle Hill for the fall. Projects will be weather-dependent and may include outdoor painting projects, work on the grounds, sprucing up the outside of buildings, and work of the household. Learn new skills or practice old ones. We will worship together and have worship-sharing opportunities to explore the role of service in our lives. There is work for all levels of strength and ability, with most work being medium to heavy.

$75/shared room, private room, or commuter (will cover the cost of room and board).

Limited to 15.

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October 3-5
Yoga You Can Take Home with You
A weekend retreat with Bob and Kristen Butera

Learn the theory and practices of a complete yoga program, including interpersonal relationships, nutrition, spirituality at work, postures, breathing, meditation, and personal affirmation. Reflect on your life and spiritual practice in retreat. We will design a personal program for your home practice focused on adherence to a spiritual lifestyle. Discover how a yoga lifestyle program can contribute to your health of mind and body and nurture a spiritual understanding of your life’s purpose. Please bring an open mind, smile, loving heart, notebook, and yoga mat.

Robert Butera founded the YogaLife Institute in Devon (PA) and publishes Yoga Living magazine. A graduate of Earlham School of Religion, Bob earned a Ph.D. in yoga from the California Institute of Integral Studies. Certified by The Yoga Institute in Bombay , India in 1989, Bob has practiced yoga for more than twenty years.

Kristen Butera manages the YogaLife Institute and is editor of Yoga Living magazine. Practicing yoga since 2002, Kristen gave up work in the corporate world to teach yoga full-time in 2006. She teaches both Beginning and Prenatal classes at the YogaLife Institute.

$285/shared room; $360/private room; $200/commuter

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October 10-12
Youth Workers Training Retreat
A weekend with Kri Burkander and Lisa Graustein

This fast-paced, fully experiential workshop is a chance for new and current youth workers to build their skills and expand their repertoire of games, activities, and responses to common youth issues. Each session will combine activities to take back home along with the underlying theory and pedagogy behind their effectiveness. We will explore explicitly issues of community building, child safety, working with challenging youth, group dynamics, and program development through games, activities, worship, and discussion. Whether you staff a Yearly Meeting program or work with your monthly meeting youth, this retreat will give you the tools, theory, and skills needed to run a safe, dynamic, and Spirit-nurturing youth program.

Note: the workshop is geared toward those working with high school aged youth. Those working with middle schoolers are welcome to attend, but the focus will be working with youth ages 14-18.

Kri Burkander of Ann Arbor Friends Meeting (MI) is teen coordinator for Lake Erie Yearly Meeting and serves on the Youth Ministries, Religious Education, and Long Range Conference Planning committees of Friends General Conference (FGC). She has staffed the FGC Gathering High School Program for twelve years. She is the assistant director of the Upper School of Ann Arbor Academy, where she teaches history and psychology.

Lisa Graustein is a member of New England Yearly Meeting (NEYM) and has worked with the Young Friends program there for the last twelve years, serving as the NEYM Young Friends Coordinator from 2003 to 2006. She has also served on NEYM's Youth Programs Committee and was their representative to the last YouthQuake Committee. Lisa is a high school history teacher, sexuality educator, and diversity trainer.

$285/shared room; $360/private room; $200/commuter

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October 19-23
Just North of Slavery: the African-American Experience in Southeast Pennsylvania
A short course with Christopher Densmore, Nancy V. Webster, Emma Lapsansky-Werner, Amanda Kemp and others

Situated just miles north of the Mason-Dixon Line that separated slave states from free, Pendle Hill is an ideal spot from which to explore the “borderlands” questions that confronted 19 th century African-Americans and Quakers. Philadelphia was a hotbed of abolitionist activities, and farming communities in the border counties of Delaware , Chester , and Lancaster provided work and community life for free African-Americans and those who had escaped enslavement. As fall comes to southern Pennsylvania , enjoy lively lectures with accomplished local historians, guided visits to the scenes of the Christiana Resistance, the Underground Railroad Museum, historic Quaker meetinghouses and African-American churches, and a live performance of Show Me the Franklins by Amanda Kemp. More detailed information is available at www.pendlehill.org.

Christopher Densmore is director of Friends Historical Library at Swarthmore College. He has published more than fifty articles on Quaker-related topics, including studies of Quaker anti-slavery activities in Upstate New York and in Chester County (PA). He wrote the introduction for the recently republished History of the Underground Railroad in Chester and the NeighboringCounties of Pennsylvania. On the board of the Friends Historical Association and vice president of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, he speaks frequently and widely on Underground Railroad topics.

Christopher Densmore’s recent presentations include: “Quakers and the Underground Railroad in the Mid-Atlantic Region,” Buxton National Historic Site and Museum, Buxton, Ontario, September 1, 2006; "And so thee still thinks of going to Canada, Eliza?” at the Canadian Friends Historical Association, Newmarket, Ontario, Saturday, April 5, 2008; “The Underground Railroad in Chester County and Beyond: Across Race, Across Region and Across Religion,” Hadley Memorial Fund Lecture, at Unionville, Pennsylvania, February 29, 2008; “Crossing Borders for Freedom: Free Blacks, Quakers and the Underground Railroad,” at the International Underground Railroad Conference, Rochester, New York, September 28, 2007.

Nancy V. Webster is a prominent regional historian and preservation planner. She has researched and recorded many historical sites for the Pennsylvania and National Registers, as well as similar local, state, and federal programs. A descendant of five station masters on the Underground Railroad (URR), she has led numerous trips, short courses, and documentation efforts for the URR in the area under consideration. A longtime member of Swarthmore Monthly Meeting (PA), she is the curator of the Friends Historical Association.

Emma Lapsansky-Werner is professor of history and curator of Quaker and Special Collections at Haverford College . She has published on various topics focused on the intersection of faith and social reform. Among her publications are African American Lives: The Struggle for Freedom and Back to Africa: Benjamin Coates and the Colonization Movement in America, 1848-1880. She is a member of Lansdowne Monthly Meeting (PA).

Playwright-performer Amanda Kemp is the founder of Theatre for Transformation.  A member of Lancaster Monthly Meeting (PA), she served as the 2007-08 Cadbury Scholar at Pendle Hill. With a doctorate in performance studies from Northwestern University , she has taught at Cornell University , Franklin & Marshall College , Dickinson College , and Millersville University . For more information visit www.dramandakemp.com

 

$695/shared room; $775/private room (includes meals, transportation, and entrance fees)

Limited to 13

This course qualifies for our Bring a Friend Discount. Learn more here

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October 24-26
Designing Your Creative Future:
Thinking Beyond Games with Balls, Fish, Grandchildren and Passports
A program on career and creative-retirement planning with Kendall Dudley

This multilayered program uses writing, art, lights, pictures, performance , and music to jumpstart your thinking about the absorbing and purposeful life that lies ahead for you. For those in the midst of their careers and boomers, their colleagues and friends – plus anyone else feeling the itch to break out of their current thinking – this hands-on program gets people in and out of their heads to imagine the possibilities contained within alternative life forms.

Kendall Dudley is a regular favorite at Pendle Hill. A career and creative-retirement consultant, writer and artist, he leads creative experiential programs designed to get people to imagine their futures beyond the limitations that often impede access to our deepest yearnings. For more information, visit his website, http://www.lifeworkscareers.com.

$285/shared room; $360/private room; $200/commuter

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October 24-26
Walt Whitman’s Democratic Spirituality
A weekend with Michael Robertson

Walt Whitman is not only America ’s greatest poet but also author of some of the most beautiful and profound spiritual poetry in the English language. Inspired by transcendentalism and Quakerism, Whitman’s poetry offers an inclusive, democratic spirituality that reaches out equally to women and men, whites and blacks, gays and straights. This workshop will focus on Whitman’s masterpiece, “Song of Myself,” and will also offer opportunities to write your own spiritual poetry.

Walt Whitman's Spiritual Epic by Michael Robertson Available from our Bookstore

Michael Robertson is a professor of English at The College of New Jersey, where he teaches courses in American literature and gender studies. He is author of the Pendle Hill pamphlet Walt Whitman’s Spiritual Epic (April 2008) and of Worshipping Walt: The Whitman Disciples (Princeton University Press, 2008). A longtime member of Princeton Friends Meeting (NJ), he has served as clerk of the School Committee of Princeton Friends School.

$285/shared room; $360/private room; $200/commuter

 

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October 31-November 2
Inquirers’ Weekend: An Introduction to Quakerism
A weekend with Helen Garay-Toppins and Thomas Swain

Ready to take a closer look at Quakerism? Join fellow seekers for a deeper grounding in the basics of Quaker faith and practice and how they connect to your spiritual journey. In the relaxed atmosphere of Pendle Hill, there will be opportunities for worship, discussion, sharing, and questions. We welcome all – new members, long-time Friends seeking a fresh start, and anyone interested in an introduction to Quakerism.

Helen Garay Toppins has been on a spiritual journey with Quakerism for 40 years. She is co-clerk of the Black Concerns Committee and former clerk of the Prisons Committee for New York Yearly Meeting. A member of the Fellowship of Friends of African Descent and of Morningside Meeting (NY), she serves on the Continuing Care Committee of the emerging Bedford Stuyvesant Worship Group in Brooklyn (NY). She frequently leads workshops and retreats for Quaker meetings and conference centers.

Thomas Swain, a retired public school librarian, has taught Quakerism and spiritual gifts for many years at Pendle Hill and at Woodbrooke, where he is a tutor. He serves as clerk of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (PYM) and of PYM’s national peace gathering with Mennonites and Brethren planned for January 2009.

$285/shared room; $360/private room; $200/commuter

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October 31-November 2
Called to Lead: The Servant-Leadership Model
A weekend with Rubye Howard Braye

True leaders in our organizations may not have titles, but they bring attitudes, qualities, and practices to their work that draw out the best in us. The Servant-Leadership philosophy emphasizes a holistic approach to leadership, one based on service as a path to our own personal transformation and to greater effectiveness and fulfillment for those we serve. Whether you are called to leadership in your workplace or in your volunteer life, we invite you to:

• Explore the characteristics and qualities for servant-leadership;
• Tap the depths of your spirituality to grow in mindfulness and vision as a leader;
• Practice useful mediation techniques;
• Integrate mind, body, and spirit to radiate inspiration as you relate with others more effectively;
• Awaken to creative ways to accomplish tasks and care for resources in the call to service.

Rubye Howard Braye is an executive coach and organizational consultant specializing in human and organizational development. Her Ph.D. dissertation focused on “Servant-Leadership: Belief and Practice in Women-led Businesses.” She served as national Katrina response coordinator for the American Friends Service Committee. She is a facilitator with Help Increase the Peace (HIPP) and the Alternatives to Violence Project ( AVP ), with service on the national and the international boards. She is a member of Wilmington Friends Meeting (NCYM-C), the Friends General Conference Board, and the Pendle Hill Board of Trustees.

$285/shared room; $360/private room; $200/commuter

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November 7-9
Joyful, Quakerly, and Carbon Neutral:
A weekend of prayerful discovery with Patricia McBee

How can our Quaker spiritual tradition and our Quaker testimonies show us ways to greater integrity in our relationship with the earth? What are some practical steps we can undertake right now to live in joyful harmony with the rest of the biosphere? How can we work toward a greater faithfulness as Friends both individually and corporately? We will think, pray, and play as we seek together for the next steps on the path.

Patricia McBee, a long-time teacher of Quaker spirituality and Quaker practice, has more recently found herself led to integrate spiritual deepening with care for the earth. She provides supportive consultation to meetings that are undertaking green building projects. Former editor of the Pastoral Care Newsletter, Pat has traveled in the ministry throughout the United States. She is a member of Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting (PA).

$285/shared room; $360/private room; $200/commuter

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November 9-13
Holding in the Light, Framing the Sacred:
Photography in the Digital Age
A Short Course with Sharon Gunther

Prepare to behold! As fall unfolds its glories, set your camera to worship mode and come to Pendle Hill. Taking advantage of the magic light of morning and late afternoon, we will literally “hold in the light” and “frame the sacred.” Worship, poetry, Taizé chanting, and worship sharing will enrich our time together as we also visit the basic technical aspects of digital photography and explore fine art photography, portraiture, and photo-journalism.

Sharon Gunther has been a Quaker for 22 years and a freelance professional photographer for 35. Visit her website, http://web.mac.com/sharongunther to see photographs of her assignments and travel. Her photos grace the website and publications of Pendle Hill and Friends World Committee for Consultation, and her photographs of Paris and Guatemala were featured in a spring 2008 exhibit at Pendle Hill.

$490/shared room; $585/private room; $375/commuter

This course qualifies for our Bring a Friend Discount. Learn more here

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November 9-13
Envisioning a Moral Economy
A short course with Tom Head

It seems that something is seriously wrong with “the economy.” We encounter repeated financial crises, growing threats to the environment, and unconscionable extremes of poverty and wealth. Can we structure an economic system that not only works, but works for the benefit of all? Can we meet human needs without ruining the planet, or is it already too late? This course will consider the spiritual basis of economic thought and practice: What is good stewardship? What is right living? What economic arrangements best serve human needs? Each session will include a blending of source materials drawn from both religious tradition and economic thought, moving toward envisioning an economy—at home, in the larger community, and globally— that is balanced, healthy and just. No formal background in economics is needed, just an interest in drawing upon the depths of insight in our spiritual traditions and the best of social thinking about the role of economic activity in our lives.

Tom Head teaches Economics and International Studies at George Fox University in Newberg (OR) and is a member of Bridge City Friends Meeting, Portland (OR) (North Pacific Yearly Meeting). He studied with Kenneth Boulding in the 1970s and has had a long-standing interest in the interface of religion and economics. He has been actively involved with the Quaker Institute for the Future, the Friends Association for Higher Education, Friends World Committee for Consultation, the American Friends Service Committee, and the Quaker United Nations Office, serving as one of the Quaker delegates to the World Trade Organization’s most recent Ministerial Meeting in Hong Kong.

$490/shared room; $585/private room; $375/commuter

This course qualifies for our Bring a Friend Discount. Learn more here

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November 14-16
Clerking: Serving the Community with Joy and Confidence
A weekend with Arthur Larrabee

This is an opportunity for both new and experienced clerks of Friends’ meetings and committees to meet and think together about the role of presiding clerk. It is expected that each person will leave the weekend with new energy and enthusiasm for being a clerk, feeling well grounded in both the theoretical and the practical. There will be handouts, exercises, and opportunities to share experiences, with most work done in a whole group setting. Among other topics, we will consider:

• Developing a philosophy of clerking;
• Techniques of good clerking;
• The fundamentals of a Quaker meeting for business;
• How to make our meetings for business more truly meetings for worship;
• What a “sense of the meeting” is and where we can look for it;
• Distinguishing between political and spiritual statements;
• Ways to deal with humanly difficult questions, issues, and decisions.

Arthur Larrabee, a lifelong Friend and a member of Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting, has led many workshops on clerking. He has served as clerk of his meeting, the Committee in Charge of Westtown School, and Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (PYM), as well as numerous committees and boards. He currently serves as General Secretary of PYM.

$295/shared room; $370/private room; $210/commuter (includes the cost of materials)

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November 28-30
Finding Our Way Home: An Advent Pilgrimage to New Beginnings
With Katharine and Ken Jacobsen

Bethlehem , the birth place we are looking for, may turn out to be very close at hand.  Drawing on Jesus' Beatitudes as a pilgrimage pathway, this semi-silent retreat is an opportunity to journey together toward the renewing center, the life of Love, which Jesus promises, and which is our true home.

Begin your retreat on Thanksgiving Day. Join the Pendle Hill community for our traditional Thanksgiving feast and festivities. $75/shared room; $95/private room

Ken and Katharine Jacobsen were interim co-directors of Pendle Hill in 2006-07. Both are members of Stillwater Monthly Meeting, Ohio Yearly Meeting, where Katharine is an elder. Both have led retreats and workshops in Quaker faith and practice in the Midwest and at Pendle Hill. Katharine has studied at Chicago Theological Seminary, where Ken is finishing his work on a Ph.D.

Retreat begins with registration at 1 p.m.

$285/shared room; $360/private room; $200/commuter

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December 5-7
The Spiritual Eye of Attention: A Thomas Merton Retreat
With Robert Waldron

“Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer,” according to Simone Weil. Together we will explore the prose and poetry of Cistercian monk/writer Thomas Merton as he charts his spiritual journey toward attentive wholeness. Retreatants will not only come to know the life of contemplation as revealed in Merton's writing, but will experience how close attention to the text awakens our own contemplative nature. Prayerful reading of Merton reunites us with the divine Light that resides in each of us.

Robert Waldron is a widely known author of nine books, four of them on Thomas Merton. He is the recipient of four fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and of several prizes for his writing on contemporary spirituality. He currently conducts retreats on Thomas Merton, Henri Nouwen, and modern poetry. His newest book is Thomas Merton, Master of Attention: An Exploration of Prayer (Paulist Press, 2008).

$285/shared room; $360/private room; $200/commuter

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December 5-7
Claiming Our Peace Testimony
A weekend with Mary Lord

At the heart of Quaker testimonies is the practice of living and speaking from our experience of God. Each generation of Quakers, indeed each Quaker, has to grapple with the meaning of the peace testimony. What does the peace testimony mean for us today – for our personal lives, our meetings, and the wider world? Is it practical? Have we made a difference? We will seek the spiritual roots of Quaker peacemaking, share our personal peace journeys, and explore the rich heritage of Quaker experiments and experience as peacemakers.

Mary Lord has worked professionally in the field of peace and security for 30 years, most recently as national director of peace-building for the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), and on the program on peaceful prevention of armed conflict for Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL). She has traveled extensively in the US and internationally speaking on peace and on the spiritual foundation of the Quaker peace testimony.

$285/shared room; $360/private room; $200/commuter

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New Year’s Retreats
December 30 – January 3

Welcome the New Year at Pendle Hill! Explore the rich history of American music with Karl Middleman, slow down and relax in Valerie Brown’s mindfulness retreat, or create your own sojourn. Potter Francis Elling will be available in the art studio to greet and guide retreatants. However you participate, you will be treated to an instrumental and vocal chamber music concert organized by Maestro Middleman and featuring internationally renowned soprano Julianne Baird, and a New Year’s celebration capped by our candlelight meeting for worship.

Retreats begin at 1 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 30 and conclude with lunch on Saturday, Jan. 3.

$540/shared room; $635/private room; $375/commuter

Special rate: Register by August 1, and pay $485/shared room; $570/private room; $335/commuter

Join us for a joyous alcohol-free New Year’s Eve celebration featuring hors d’oeuvres around the fire, an inspired home-cooked dinner with local organic ingredients, musical entertainment, an ice cream social, and a candlelight Meeting for Worship to welcome the New Year.

American Musical Mosaics
Karl Middleman

America ’s Musical Mosaics will explore the fascinating and constantly evolving dialogue between composers and their public in America . America ’s musical legacy is immense. Here are the voices of poets and patriots – farmers, folk heroes, and fanatics – voices that made the unique saga of America . It is a legacy full of artful invention and rugged, hard-won beauty. In some ways a synthesis of many forms, it also can be appreciated as a mosaic, a collage of disparate non-blending elements. From the age of George Washington to the times of George Gershwin and later, America ’s Musical Mosaics will sample many sides of this unique panorama. Composers in the lineup include John Knowles Paine, John Cage, Leonard Bernstein, Philip Glass, and George Crumb.

Karl Middleman is founder and director of the Philadelphia Classical Symphony and has conducted orchestras widely in Europe and the Delaware Valley . He is a frequent lecturer for the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Opera Company of Philadelphia , the Art Museum of Philadelphia, and learning institutions throughout the Delaware Valley . Karl’s New Year’s musical retreats are among our most popular programs.

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Enjoy an instrumental and vocal chamber music concert featuring internationally renowned soprano Julianne Baird. Julianne Baird, soprano, has been hailed as "one of the most extraordinary voices in the service of early music that this generation has produced. She possesses a natural musicianship which engenders singing of supreme expressive beauty." With a busy concert schedule of solo recitals and performances of baroque opera and oratorio and more than 100 recordings, Julianne also teaches and coaches. She is Distinguished Professor of Music at Rutgers University. For more information, visit www.juliannebaird.camden.rutgers.edu

 

Potter Francis Elling will be available in the art studio to greet and guide retreatants. Francis Elling was a 2005-2006 Minnie Jane artist-in-residence at Pendle Hill and has taught in the summer term ever since. With an M.S.W in mental health and a fourteen-year career as a social worker in Kansas, Francis began his career as a potter five years ago, studying on his own and at the Lawrence County Arts Center. He took two awards at the juried Muldane Art Fair in Topeka and held his first one-person show in May 2005 at the Topeka Arts Council. Francis is a member and former clerk of Oread Friends Meeting in Lawrence (KS).

Open Heart, Peaceful Mind:
A Retreat for Rest and Reflection
Valerie Brown (Inder Kaur)

Relax into the nourishing, healing setting of this retreat and consider the gifts of the new year. Sustained periods of silence and mindfulness meditation will quiet the mind. Prayer and reflection will open the heart, and small group discussions will build community. Gentle Kundalini yoga will help develop mindfulness of the body and support healing. There will be opportunities to journal, explore creativity in the art studio, share laughter, and rest deeply. Retreatants may choose to do all or part of the retreat in silence. These experiences will help you reclaim your true spirit, restore balance in your life, and nurture awareness of the many gifts of the present moment. You will take home new tools to create peace and happiness in your daily life.

Limited to 20 participants.

Valerie Brown (Inder Kaur) is a certified teacher of Kundalini yoga and mindfulness meditation, trained in holistic spirituality, and a founding member of Old Path Sangha, a Buddhist community in New Hope (PA). Valerie wrote the Pendle Hill pamphlet The Mindful Quaker: A Brief Introduction to Buddhist Wisdom for Friends (October 2006) and is teaching the Pendle Hill fall term class Bless This Body: Nurturing Right Relationship From Within. She is a member of Solebury Monthly Meeting.

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A New Year’s Sojourn

Create your own New Year’s Retreat by sojourning at Pendle Hill without participating in a workshop. New Year’s sojourners are welcome at meals, snack times, worship, and evening entertainment, and are encouraged to enjoy the bookstore, library, and art studio.

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