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These are bewildering and scary times. Things seem to be coming apart: democracy, planet Earth, our nerves. In these times of disconnection and disintegration, division and dislocation, it’s crucial that we make time to renew our spirits and to restore our capacities for connection and courage, wonder and resilience. Author and naturalist John Muir wrote, “Of all your paths in life, make sure that some of them are dirt,” reminding us of the powerful need we have to be “grounded”: truly and deeply connected with ourselves, with others, and with Earth. This Getting Grounded retreat is about relationship and restoration, about healing the ties between “soil and soul,” and about the connections between loving a place and seeking justice.
The retreat begins at 6:00 p.m. Thursday, October 10 and concludes by 3:00 p.m. Saturday the 12th. It will include ample time and space for solitude and silence, conversation and reflective writing, rest and recreation among the quietly astonishing autumn landscapes of Prairie Oaks Institute. Wonderfully situated at the convergence of oak savannah and the Minnesota River Valley, native sand-hill prairie and organic farmland, urban and rural living, POI is the ideal setting to explore the intersections of the inner and outer landscapes of your own life and work in the world. In large-group, small-group, and solitary settings, the program will be grounded in your own experience and fueled with insights from poets, scholars, artists, naturalists, musicians, filmmakers, scientists, and various wisdom traditions. Clearness Committees and other high-integrity and strictly confidential processes of discernment and mutually supportive accountability will be a key component.
KEY OUTCOMES INCLUDE:
- Reconnect who we are with what we do and where we live.
- Take the opportunity to allow the world of nature to restore our hearts and spirits.
- Listen to Earth, and learn from the more-than-human family.
- Remember and practice awe, astonishment, and gratitude.
- Enhance our ability to understand complex and interdependent systems, cultivate expansive imagination, and treasure the wisdom of diverse perspectives.
- Name and hold our emotional responses to the significant challenges of our time.
- Practice crucial skills and capacities of mind, heart, and body that help us live into these challenges.
- Experience the healing that can arise from standing on solid interior ground.
- Replenish our inner reservoirs of courage and resilience so we can live, work, and lead wherever we are, for the common good.
- Be held by a remarkable community of support, inspiration, and positive relationship.
Some additional details:
The investment of $395 includes overnight lodging (shared occupancy) in either “Harvest House” or “The Farmhouse” at POI, all meals, refreshments, materials. (SAVE $50 if you register at the “early bird” rate of $345 by August 15. A “commuter” option, which does not include overnight lodging, is also available for $345.) CLICK HERE to REGISTER!
Prairie Oaks Institute is a nonprofit education- and retreat center located on a 115-year-old farm on the edge of Belle Plaine, Minnesota on the southwest outskirts of the Twin Cities, just 30 minutes from MSP International Airport. Visitors to POI’s 20-acre main campus also have access to the 180 adjacent remaining acres of the certified-organic family farm, which includes a meditation labyrinth in the restored prairie, the Granary (a three-season recreational shelter overlooking Robert Creek), farm animals and wildlife, and a 26-acre “garden” of solar panels. POI’s mission is to be a catalyst of rejuvenation for people and the planet, and its work is to nourish expansive imagination, bold thinking, wise action, and cross-sector solutions to the unprecedented environmental and social challenges of our time. Please visit www.prairieoaksinstitute.org for more information.
Program design & leadership is by Courage & Renewal facilitators Karen Harding and Chris Johnson
Karen Harding, MS, recently retired from a career teaching Chemistry and Environmental Science at Pierce College in Lakewood, WA. Her love of the natural world arose early and has shaped her professional and personal life. She believes that the more deeply we understand our place in, and our impact on, our surroundings, the more likely we are to know how to live a life filled with love, harmony and resilience. In addition to exploring the connections between body, mind and spirit, Karen enjoys bicycling, skiing, running, spending time with friends, gardening, and reading.
Dr. Chris Johnson is the product of the fields and prairies, lakes and forests of southern Minnesota, having grown up on a farm near Litchfield. He has more than 25 years of experience in teaching, speaking, coaching, and facilitating retreats with a wide range of audiences in education, faith-based, and nonprofit organizations around issues of vocation, calling, and purpose; life transitions; leadership development; experiential learning; and spirituality in life and work. He is founder and principal of The Milkweed Group, LLC, whose work is to create and hold safe, courageous spaces that nourish inner wisdom, sharpen clarity of purpose, and nourish capacity to live and lead for a better world.
Please join us! CLICK HERE to REGISTER!