Setting up and keeping a nature journal as a spiritual practice with Beth Norcross, Founding Director of Center for Spirituality in Nature
July 25-27, 2014
6 pm Friday - 1 pm Sunday
Rolling Ridge Study Retreat
Body:

Spiritual Journaling in Nature offers a break from our hectic, overscheduled lives by providing space and time to breathe, center ourselves, and play in the woods by ourselves and with others — human and non-human! The program gives an overview of how to set up and keep a nature journal as a spiritual practice. We will talk together about the significant spiritual role the natural world played in the faith formation of our ancestors and discuss the important opportunity for spiritual deepening that nature offers. We will go through the elements of keeping a nature journal and explore how journaling in nature helps us to be centered, mindful and attentive to both Spirit as well as other creatures.

July 18-20,2014
Friday 6:30 pm - Sunday 3pm
Rolling Ridge Study Retreat
Body:

Many know that the path we are on as a global society is not sustainable for people or the Earth. For over 30 years, Permaculture as a grass-roots movement has been growing, deepening, and spreading all over the world with a focus on finding practical sustainable solutions. As an ethical design science, Permaculture offers a relevant strategy for individuals, communities, and organizations who are seeking social and ecological change with a deeper understanding and awareness of natural patterns.

A Creative Spirit Retreat For Girls Ages 10-16
June 22 - 27, 2014
3 pm Sunday June 22 - after lunch Friday June 27
Still Point Retreat at Rolling Ridge near Charles Town, WV
Body:

Retreat to the Ridge and bring your art with you. If you draw, dance, sing, write, play a musical instrument, sculpt, sew, or otherwise create—this retreat is for you! Practice in an inspiring mountain setting; share creative experiences with one another; explore the connection between silence, spirit, and creativity; try something new in sampler sessions with guest artists. Parents and younger sibs welcome.

The Retreat Features:

  • 5 Overnights
  • Kid-friendly meals
  • Campfire
  • Marshmallows
  • Visiting and Mentoring Artists
  • Hiking Trails
  • Pond
  • River
  • Kindred Spirits
  • Creative Partnership with the Great Creator

Retreat fee is $400. Scholarships available and special family/sibling discounts. Free with parent as staff/artist.

Give up all the other worlds, except the one to which you belong.
May 16-18, 2014
6 pm Friday - 2 pm Sunday
Still Point Mountain Retreat at Rolling Ridge
Body:

Give up all the other worlds, except the one to which you belong. - David Whyte

We live in a time between stories. For many, our old stories that tell us who we are and what life and the world is about no longer serve us well. A new story is emerging, but is not yet here. We know it is time to let go of much from our past to fully enter the new. It is time to cast off.

One practice that can help us say "good-bye" to what life has been is the "death lodge," often part of the preparation for a vision quest. The main focus of this retreat will be a long solo time on the land. Once you find a place that draws you to do this work, you then build a little lodge. Lying in that lodge you will invite people and other beings and landscapes one by one from the past for a final visit and conversation.

For 10-16 year olds and parent, grandparent, or mentor
May 10-11, 2014 Mother's Day Weekend
Dinner at 7pm Friday through Saturday supper
Rolling Ridge Study Retreat
Body:

"In our grasshopper and salamander days,
who among us didn't ask why
the grasshopper could jump so far—
or why the salamander had black dots on its orange body...
We lived by wonder, for by wondering we were able
to multiply a growing consciousness of being alive."

—Richard Lewis, Living by Wonder

This retreat is designed especially for pairs of one adult and one child (ages 10-16). The retreat includes:

April 18-20, 2014
Rolling Ridge Study Retreat
Body:

Join us for our traditional "non-traditional" Stations of the Cross at Rolling Ridge on Friday, April 18; this is the walking meditation we have done here for more than a decade, through the sacred spaces and forest paths in and near the Retreat House. The details of the script for this change every year but the core remains the same: re-visioned Stations created lovingly and prayerfully from gathered pieces of our lives (and always visually compelling), time for walking mindfully and in silence together through the springkissed forest, opportunities for speaking aloud the cry from our hearts, and finally a gathered community waiting in darkness and hope.

We'll begin with a simple Lenten meal of soup and bread at the Retreat House at 5 pm, followed by the Stations (probably beginning around 6).

A retreat of story and discovery in the season of the spring equinox
March 28-30, 2014
6 pm Friday March 28 - 1 pm Sunday March 30
Still Point Mountain Retreat near Rolling Ridge
Body:

Retreat Leaders: Julie Gabrielli and Lindsay McLaughlin
Cost: $210 (scholarships available).

Much has been spoken about the hero's journey, but what of the heroine? Is she the one who waits, like Penelope, endlessly weaving and unweaving, for the hero to return? Is she merely the place that people are trying to get back to, or does she have a journey of her own? The answer, carried deep within the stories of women around the world, and throughout time, is a resounding yes.

This heroine's journey wends a profoundly different path: circular, growing, embracing, expanding, learning. Yet often as women we have been grabbed time and again by a hero's story that just doesn't fit us, and we wonder why something in our lives feels off.

There are questions that can make or unmake a life, questions that have patiently waited for you, questions that have no right to go away.
February 28-March 1, 2014
Friday 6 pm - Saturday 4 pm
Still Point Mountain Retreat
Body:

"There are questions that can make or unmake a life, questions that have patiently waited for you, questions that have no right to go away." -- David Whyte, Sometimes

In the depths of winter's hibernation, are there questions waiting patiently for us to notice, hold, discern?

We invite you to join other men from our region for a "wilderness wandering" on February 28-March 1 at the Still Point Mountain Retreat at Rolling Ridge in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. Let the natural world draw us into those spaces that are frozen in our consciousness.

We will begin with a shared evening meal between 6-7 pm on Friday night.

The time will include a series of individual and group interactions, wandering in the wilderness on Saturday, and conclude late Saturday afternoon with another communal meal.

The cost for the night will be $25 . Bring food for yourself and to share with others. The event is limited to 12 men, so be sure to sign up now!

Following an age-old tradition for contemporary pilgrims with Lindsay McLaughlin and Mary Ann Welter
February 12-14, 2016
Rolling Ridge Study Retreat near Harpers Ferry, West Virginia
Body:


We come into the stillness like snowfall, the air alive with angels, every blessed flake singular and mysterious, what's outside quiet now, and changing form. Quickening, we breathe silence. Presence holds our lives in hush. Light dazzles. Listening, we learn to answer. — Jeanne Lohmann

Gather at Rolling Ridge Study Retreat for Friday Vespers, followed by 7:00 pm dinner and Compline. Arrive Friday after 1:00 pm. Retreat ends following Terce/closing blessing at 10 am on Sunday.

Silence through the seasons
February 7-9, 2014
Friday 1 pm - Sunday 10 am
Sponsored by Friends of Silence at Still Point Mountain Retreat
Body:

I long to slip into cracks of silence where breath is connected to spirit and spirit to wind and a sense of oneness resonates in my core — Karyn D. Dedar

Gather at Still Point Mountain Retreat for Friday Vespers, followed by 7:00 p.m. dinner and Compline. Arrive Friday after 1:00 p.m. Retreat Ends 10:00 a.m. Sunday. Gathered participants will follow Prayer of the Hours until Sunday morning, interspersed with ample times for silence and rambling in the winter woods, warming around the fire, reading or writing in the library, reflecting through art, and enjoying one another in community. Come away and rest.

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