Shaped by rural and coastal
regions of Canada, and coming with varied and rich backgrounds in
farming, theological and ecological education, Maureen Wild, SC,
and James Profit, SJ, offer complimentary gifts in the reflection
on spiritual ecology themes. Timely, informative, mind-expanding
and enjoyable, these are retreats or programs for all who love our
precious Earth Community, strive for her protection and well-being,
and who seek to explore an ecologically enlightened and engaged
Christian faith.
Here are some
retreats and programs that we offer:
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The
Sacred Universe all Around & Within
- A Contemplative
Retreat that Connects Nature with
Our True Nature
(three-day to seven-day
retreat) co-guided by Maureen Wild and Elvira Clare
Maureen and Elvira enjoy
working together and they offer unique and complementary gifts for a
very enriching contemplative retreat. It invites participants to ‘bring
the ordinary into sacred awareness.’ In our minds we often separate
the sacred from the ordinary – an illusion really. What would
it be like to live more consciously and contemplatively the reality
that sacredness resides within everything?
With others, and in solitude,
come and connect with ordinary moments. Enter each moment – whatever
form it takes - and be present and open to sacred encounter. In harmony
with the cycle of the day and its movement of energy, this retreat offers
silence, outdoor experiences alone and together, gentle body prayer
among the trees and songbirds, walking, sitting and eating meditations,
contemplative forms of chanting and song. As well, daily reflections
from each teacher will weave the ‘scriptures’ of
our cosmic, earth and human story (perspectives of our ‘outer
nature’) with the ‘scriptures’ of the human
heart (our ‘inner nature’). This dance of the inner and
outer may inform and encourage the deepening of a contemplative spirituality
for our time. As we consciously bring awareness to the sacred in all,
we embrace our deep love for the world as well as all our sorrows and
woundedness. From this place we choose, within each moment, to live
deeply out of gratitude and celebration for Life – the ‘cosmic
liturgy’ within which we move and live and have our being.
[Note: 'Scriptures' refers to
those not scripted by human hand, but 'written metaphorically' as sacred
revelations within the ongoing evolutionary processes of creation and
within the deepest stirrings of the human heart.]
see also:
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A
Spirituality of Earth Healing - Within a Christian Context
(five-day
to seven-day retreat or program) co-guided by Maureen Wild and James
Profit
Themes include:
• Mysticism
of Earth and Cosmos
• Healing our Discontinuity with Creation - Coming Home to Oneness
• Mysticism of Earth - God of the Outdoors
• In Healing Ways – Walking with God in an Evolutionary
Universe
• From Ecological Sin to the Passion of Earth and Resilience
of Life
• The Healing Ways of Cosmic Christ Consciousness Within Us
• Practicing Resurrection – A Spirituality of Hope in
Peril
• Like the Flowers - Releasing Our Passion for the Next Energy
Revolution
• Earth Wisdom and Life Disciplines for Spiritual and Ecological
Homecoming
• Communion with Earth
Affirmation of this Program:
“The Colloquium for 'A Spirituality of Earth Healing - Within
a Christian Framework' touched into my "farm girl" soul.
It was, in retrospect, a deep experience of "home-coming."
Finely tuned, sensitively paced days gently led me to an ever deeper
experience of gratitude and wonder at the merging of my own spiritual
roots and the story of the universe as viewed by science. Jim and
Maureen led us to a deeper integration of science and the sacred.
There is something new for me as I keep coming back to the fundamental
human questions: Who are we? What is our role in the cosmic realm?
Where are we going? Maureen and Jim shared spiritual and ecological
insight and encouraged us to reflect upon and share the implications
for economics, politics, education and ethics. It was a call to see
with new eyes.” Gertrude Sopracolle, OSU, St. Albert, AB
see also:
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Greening
Spirit: Cultivating a Christian Spiritual Ecology
(silent
guided retreat) co-guided by Maureen Wild and James Profit
Within a cosmological and ecological context, this retreat fosters
an experience of God present and working in creation. It looks at the
person of Jesus with new eyes. Jesus experiences nature as a place to
pray and a source of grace. How now can we open up his parables and
many other metaphors? We will reflect on Christ's passion in our time,
as it also relates to our earth home in peril. Can we hear the passion
of Christ in the cry of Earth? How are we being called to “practice
resurrection” with a spirit of hope? In an ecological way, we
will explore gospel-rooted values of the “Commons” and the
Christian virtues, the Metanoia, compassion, healing, and peace. All
these themes are opened up in a contemplative and holistic mind-body-heart-spirit
approach.
see also:
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Reflections on Ecological Christianity & New Cosmology
Where is Jesus anyway?
co-guided
by Maureen Wild and James Profit
This symposium honours John English, SJ, whose
passion (before his death in 2004) was “greening” the Spiritual
Exercises of St. Ignatius.
The new cosmology calls us to
re-examine what it means to be Christian in relationship to all creation.
The story of Jesus is an integral part of the story of the cosmos and
Earth. Jesus - like all of us - emerges out of the same creative processes,
pervasive energy and holy mystery that birthed the stars in the sky.
He shared the same evolving sensibilities that course through our own
thoughts, imaginations, and hearts’ desires that call forth the
deepest dimension of what it means to be human. Jesus experienced nature
as a source of grace and a place of prayer.
The new cosmology calls us to
re-examine what it means to be Christian in relationship to all creation.
The story of Jesus is an integral part of the story of the cosmos and
Earth. Jesus - like all of us - emerges out of the same creative processes,
pervasive energy and holy mystery that birthed the stars in the sky.
He shared the same evolving sensibilities that course through our own
thoughts, imaginations, and hearts’ desires that call forth the
deepest dimension of what it means to be human. Jesus experienced nature
as a source of grace and a place of prayer.
The co-presenters will help
us reflect on this understanding of Jesus. They will reflect on his
nature mysticism as evident in Jesus’ repeated choice of nature’s
metaphors in his teachings. Attuned to the signs of our particular time
of planetary awareness, and conscious we live within a sacred universe,
what might be our experience of ‘Christ presence’ in the
world today?
Nov
12-15, 2010, The John English Symposium
Loyola House at Ignatius Jesuit Centre, Guelph, ON
www.ignatiusguelph.ca/ecology/eco_events.html
see also:
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A Lenten Mission:
Cosmic Pilgrim –
Christian Pilgrim
Cosmology,
Ecology & Christianity Evolving
co-guided
by Maureen Wild and Margaret MacIntyre
Lenten Reflection Themes:
1. The Christian Choice for
Ecological Justice
2. Christ’s Passion – Earth’s Passion
3. Hope – Practicing Resurrection ... Nurturing an Ecologically
Aware & Responsive Christianity
The signs of our times invite
us to experience light in the midst of darkness and the birth of deeper
Christ consciousness within us. Our human role and our Christian purpose
in the world are ever on the advent of something new – new growth,
new shoots from the old. We are always being called to evolve and deepen
our Christian identity in light of new understandings. The story of
our sacred universe, and of our Earth with the current unravelling of
the intricate web of life, and our particular cultural story being written
in our time, calls Christians to new depths of truth and wisdom, inner
healing and outward compassion for all of creation. It is a deep psychic
time for the human – a time of breaking the old patterns within
us as we reach for ‘the life that longs for itself’ from
within. Christ’s message takes on ever deeper meaning for us now:
“I have come that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly."
(Jn 10:10)
Come to this special Lenten
time of reflection on our sacred Christian mysteries of life, death
and resurrection – which are also etched into the memory of Earth
and cosmos. Meet God in the silence of your heart and the stillness
and wisdom of creation, and in Jesus who experienced nature as a source
of grace. Explore how we can follow Jesus’ contemplative spirit
and disposition of heart to walk humbly, act justly and love tenderly
within the family of all creation.
see also:
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Mysticism
of Sacred Earth & Cosmos
This retreat offers contemplative
pathways into nurturing our mystic relationship with Earth and cosmic
community, and invites conscious evolving into new ways of being and
acting in the world.
We are an integral part of an
awesome story of intimate relationship and kinship with the whole of
reality. Creative energy and holy mystery continues to birth the stars
in the sky, shape the mountains and valleys, tug at the waves of the
sea, and work through our minds, hearts, imaginations to call forth
the deepest dimension of what is means to be human. It is holy fire
– and a sacred story. Co-presenters will draw from the wisdom
of Earth and cosmos, the nature mysticism of Jesus, and inspiration
from Christian, Sufi and contemporary nature mystics. Outdoors and indoors,
through encounters with nature, contemplation, rest, silence, prayer,
story, poetry, gentle sacred circle dance, and more, this retreat invites
your mystic self to celebrate our great and wonderful oneness.
see also:
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