This program will be a sacred gathering of wisdom keepers, teachers, and community leaders with a deep, embodied love for and active spiritual practice to care for our planet.
Over a five-day and four-night program, September 27th – October 1st, at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies in Barre, MA, thirty invited contemplatives will gather to pray for our planet, practice in community, find rest, and offer our shared wisdom to one another. This program is facilitated by Margaret Fletcher, B Anderson, and Karen Waconda-Lewis. It is organized and funded by the BESS Family Foundation.
We will open and close each day by making a shared offering of our collective voices, practices, faiths, and traditions in reverence to our planet and all beings.
Daily accessible movement will follow a time to share in meditation and teachings from our collective ancestral wisdom traditions.
The facilitators and community are dedicated to making a schedule that is spacious and fluid enough for all of us to find deep rest and contemplation. Within this schedule, each participant will be asked to contribute an element from their earth-rooted contemplative/spiritual practice or share how they bring these teachings to their community.
Our time together will include:
Daily opening and closing prayer and offering of our collective practices, faith, and traditions to care for our planet and all beings.
Daily guided/supported accessible movement
Wisdom Sharing/Teachings
Daily guided mindfulness practice for self-care, grounded in Earth elements
Designated quiet care spaces for personal guided practice
Spacious time for rest and contemplation
Community Building/Relationship Building
Participatory Resource Sharing and Engaged Learning
The uniqueness of what we are called together to hold and be in practice around one another is meant to foster invaluable relationships and bonds we hope will last well beyond the time of our program. The collective community can expect to bring away inspiration, knowledge, and the potential for new embodied ways of building and caring for contemplative practice communities in their future actions for our planet.
Participating in the program is free, and travel stipends are available if needed. We expect each participant to attend the full program so that the container of the program is held sacred. This program is by invitation only.
