We could helpfully relate to our Dharma practice as the cultivation of skill and flexibility with a range of ways of seeing and sensing. Through practice we can learn to cultivate our body, heart, and mind as instruments of skillful perception.
In a Soulmaking Dharma retreat, we practice tuning ourselves to see and sense in ways that open us to more beauty, dimensionality, and many kinds of love. Relating to perception as an "art" rather than a "revealer of truth," we will practice in ways such that soul can be made from the raw materials of our life and from everything that matters to us. Sensing our roots in a richer, soulful ground, we find we are needed, beloved, and woven into a sacred and meaningful story, a story that allows us to relate to and engage our callings with imagination, humility, and devotion.
In this retreat, for those who have completed a Fall intensive online Soulmaking program through BCBS, we will support each other in cultivating the art of Making Soul.
A Gathering of Souls
After the program, there will be the possibility of staying on for a two-day sangha gathering, beginning on the evening of Friday, January 16th, and ending with lunch on Sunday, January 18th. This will be a time for sangha members to enjoy one another’s company, to connect more deeply as a group of peers, and to explore themes that speak to our souls. The weekend will be lightly held by several senior sangha members who will facilitate group spaces of silent and relational practice as well as ritual and movement. There will also be opportunities to spend more informal time together.
Anyone who attends the retreat is warmly invited and encouraged to stay on for the sangha gathering. If you are not planning to attend Catherine's retreat but would like to attend the sangha gathering, you are welcome to register for it, as long as you have previously completed the online Soulmaking Foundations course or an in-person Soulmaking retreat. Priority will be given to those who will be at the preceding retreat.
If you would like to attend the sangha gathering, please register here.
A note from Catherine
“Like some of you, I have been grappling with the ethical dimension of Dharma events and carbon-intensive forms of transport that might be involved in traveling to program venues, particularly flying. Whatever you decide about this particular program in terms of travel, I would like to affirm, in the spirit and example of Rob, a rigorous turning towards these questions as a part of our Dharma practice in this era of climate crisis and ecological breakdown.” If you have attended a Fall online program, wanted to come to a Soulmaking program and decided not to for these reasons, please let Catherine know via contact@buddhistinquiry.org subject: Carbon consideration: FAO Catherine
Program Format: This retreat will include dharma talks, guided meditation, silent meditation, relational practices, group and individual meetings, and ritual.
