Spring 2003 - Finding Your Inner Faerie
Finding Your Inner Faerie
Know you what it is to be a child
It is to believe in love
To believe in loveliness
To believe in belief
It is to be so little
That the Elves can reach
To whisper in your ear
It is to turn pumpkins into coaches
Mice into horses
Lowness into loftiness
And nothing into everything
For each child has its Faerie Godmother
In its soul.
-Frances Thompson
Faeries of all ages,
Join us May 16th for a magical weekend at The Pines where we will become Faeries and contemplate Faerie lore through the mediums of dance, song, and art.
The wonderful vocalist Elaine Silver will lead our Friday evening ritual. She will conduct a “Faerie Gathering” Friday night where we will explore the infinite possibilities of the realm of Faeries.
Dress in your best Faerie or Goddess attire as we call the directions and honor women as goddesses. There will be a chance for each woman to express herself and her ideas, encounters, stories, etc. . . involving Faeries.
Think about what you would like to share Friday evening. If you wish, bring a poem, a Faerie figure or other objects related to Faeries to add to the altar. You will also be asked to choose a Faerie name.
On Saturday night Elaine will provide a special concert of Faerie music and sacred songs. Lots of participation will occur naturally as our hearts and minds open to the love and blessing that surround us.
Our Saturday workshops will delve into Faerie lore allowing the creative spirit to emerge through writing, collage, clay and other artistic means. Workshop choices will be available for signup during dinner Friday night.
Wee Faeries may join their Faerie Goddess-mothers for some of the workshops.
Co-Facilitators
Elaine Silver
Leading the evening celebration will be Elaine Silver – Faerie Elaine who sings a cappella and play stringed instruments. Elaine has been nominated as the Garden State Outstanding Folk Performer and has accompanied such noted folk legends as Arlo Guthrie, Suzanne Vega, and Tom Paxton. She has made numerous recordings, and her newest release Faerie Goddess has been very well received. Please visit her website at elainesilver.com to hear samples of her music. Her assistant for the Friday night in-gathering is Fran Kaplan.
Susan Pendergraft
Susan has been attending UUW &R retreats for approximately 15 years. She is a teacher of Gifted Education and is currently teaching at a private Montessori school. She has experienced many years of wonderful retreats. It is her hope this retreat, Finding Your Inner Faerie, will be a great success and that everything her foremothers taught her over the years will culminate this weekend. She has called upon many Faerie Goddess-mothers to help her in this endeavor.
Fall 2002 - Recasting the Shadow: Manifesting our power
Facilitator: Diane Anderson
Co-Facilitator: Michelle Gilbert
Diane Anderson has been facilitating and participating in Women's programs for over 12 years. She has presented programs titled: Women Who Dance with Spirit, Unmasking the Soul, Resurrecting the Primal Spirit, and Women's Day of Renewal. Diane also teaches and lectures on Native American ritual and ceremony. She leads ceremonies recognizing rights of passage, such as those honoring women reaching maturity and older women at the end of child bearing. For many years, Diane led a Medicine Wheel Ceremony for a monthly Indian gathering and was the lead drummer/singer at many other gatherings and ceremonies. Both she and her husband, Glenn, lead Sweat Lodges for groups. Diane and her husband of 20 years have written a workbook for couples, Relationship Renewal: Step Up to Intimacy, and also lecture couples on achieving joyful relationships. Diane may be reached at (727) 898-9653 or by e-mail at WolfSongMe@aol.com.
Michelle Gilbert, originally from Maine, has lived in Florida for ten years. She has recently graduated from Florida Atlantic University with a degree in Museum Studies and lives on Treasure Island.
Conference 2003 - Spirituality: the Search for the Beloved
Conference 2003
Theme Speaker: Gloria Wright, Ph.D.
Dr. Gloria Wright, familiar to some of us from SUUSI, will inspire us, entertain us, and educate us. Her theme workshop will invite us to define our meaning of spirituality, examine how we let our spirit evolve, and develop understanding of the importance of the lost dreams and realities of our lives.
She will ask us to trade in our judgment for discernment. She will talk about the immense self-will that it takes to give up the need to be right. gloria will tell us of her personal journey, but will not offer us her map.
We are all mirrors, are we not?
Come listen, feel, examine, probe, and question.
Dr. Wright is listed in Whos Who in the South and Southwest and in the World's Who's Who of Women. She resides in Atlanta, Georgia and lectures also in Europe and South America.
Opening Speaker: Linda Plummer
Bridging the Generation Gap in our Religious CommunitiesWe will explore the predominant four generations in our congregations today: the Veterans (b.1922-1943), the Baby Boomers (b.1943-1960), Generation X (b.1960-1980) and Generation Y (b.1980-2000). Who are the people in each generation? What events shaped or are shaping them? What is each generation's personality? This program will help us to understand the social, political, religious, and economic forces that shaped each generation and to appreciate the unique contributions that each generation brings to our religious community. We will also have some fun with "Name that Tune" - who can identify the most songs representing all the generations? Join us for this fun, informative and interactive experience!
Linda Plummer is president of Plummer & Associates, a Jacksonville, FL based Human Resources consulting and training firm. She has a special interest in studying generations and is a popular speaker with businesses and associations. She has been a member of the Atlanta and Jacksonville Unitarian Universalist churches. Linda has served on the Board of the Jacksonville church and also on the Board of The Mountain. She has attended SUUSI for 25 years and has been a delegate to General Assembly 3 times.
Workshops
- Service Project for the American Cancer Society -Sewing turbans and small pillows for chemotherapy recipients.
- Discussion of Current Political Trends
- Mother Daughter Encounter - led by gloria wright
- Radical Persuasion - A slice of UU history
- Group Singing - for the Joy of it!
- Women's Often-Overlooked Health Issues
Spring 2002 - Inside Out: Mask Making and Spirituality
Inside Out: Mask Making and Spirituality
Once again, we invite you to share in Sabbath Time...
"Sabbath invites limited time
to become expansive time.
Sabbath makes spacious what is cramped.
It makes large out of small,
generous out of stingy,
simple of complex.
Sabbath is time that actively includes
the presence of Spirit...
The purpose is spiritual leisure
to make a spiritual choice
to have time for your own purposes."
--Sabbath Sense, A Spiritual Antidote for the Overworked
Together we will be creating a sense of the Sabbath by entering sacred time and space separate from our routines: time that feels "expansive, spacious, generous"
We will feed our Spirits through ritual, play, dance, laughter, creative focus, and enriching opportunities to be in solitude and community.
We will encourage the freedom to wander, explore, create, discover and have some spaces and times designed for silence and solitude.
This weekend, in particular, we will explore "Inside out", by way of creating a soul mask, guided by Maryanne's work in this area.
Facilitators
Susan Stephenson Hefte has been an active leader and participant in W&R for many years. The last W&R Retreat she facilitated was "Silence and Sharing in Community: A Sabbath Retreat" in 1998. Her work now is largely as a facilitator and trainer of "Alternatives to Violence Project" workshops in community and prison settings with her husband, Darrell Hefte. Her doctoral work in creativity and spirituality continues to be an important focus in her life and in what she brings to this weekend. Susan can be reached at 727/799-0683 or by E-mail drshefte@aol
Maryanne Hamilton has been a participant at two Women & Religion Retreats in the past. Susan is delighted to welcome her to the facilitation of this Retreat. Maryanne is a registered art therapist and writer who has been using creative processes to facilitate personal growth workshops since 1978 in Florida, New York and Tennessee. She enjoys sharing her studies and experiences in art, Sufism, and the healing arts with those who seek to unfold their inner potential. Maryanne can be reached at 727-576-8985; E-mail artxham@hotmail
Fall 2001 - Circles for Centering, Circles for Change
"Retreat” :: “process of withdrawing for
meditation, study; place of privacy & safety; refuge.”
Retreats allow us to withdraw, take refuge, leave the ordinary world, while we meditate, learn, relax. From that withdrawal, within that refuge, through that meditation, comes the possibility of change/of transformation/of altering the prism through which we see the world: of finding the extraordinary -- within ourselves!
Join us in this weekend of women circles:
walk a labyrinth, with your feet or with your fingers; design a mandala, a dreamcatcher, or a kaleidoscope; create a “DreamGroup” or a “PeerSpirit“ circle; write, take pictures, meditate, dance, chant; explore the cycles & circles of nature; share in a “Trust Walk.”
Join us in this weekend of possibilities:
from relaxation to transformation,
from silent contemplation to joyous celebration,
presented by 13 UU sisters from Boca Raton.
At the Fall 2001 Retreat, the organizers laid out a labyrinth on the grass, outlined with clothesline. Tobey Miller offered a writing workshop titled Spiraling In, Spiraling Out
Labyrinth
(for Tobey Miller & the Boca Babes)
You may never go to Stonehenge
nor yet the Cathedral at Chartres.
The traceries of fairies in the dew
may never grace your lawn.
But the mystic circle,
the mandala, the labyrinth
can rise at will.
The labyrinth on canvas,
painted and portable;
the more enduring,
planted with tiny hedges,
outlined with shells,
patterned with stones.
The truly ephemeral
drawn with chalk,
with string,
with spray paint,
with duct tape if you will.
With clothesline.
Each invites us to spiral in,
to focus on our core,
to spiral out refreshed.
Marble and mosaic can do no more.
-Lynn Montgomery, Miami
Spring 2001 - A Time for Fun!
The Spring Retreat was a very relaxing affair for the twenty women and five children who attended.
Friday evening, after one of the Pines’ famous dinners, we gathered together around a flower-bedecked Spring altar, courtesy of Leslie Rigg. We closed the circle with thoughtful (and thought-provoking) readings provided by Katie Sill. Then Katie brought out a songbook she’d saved from her childhood, and we launched ourselves into an old-fashioned sing-along. We finally wore ourselves out around eleven and took ourselves to bed.
Saturday we had breakfast and packed our lunches for the day, and took ourselves off to…whatever. Some of us went canoeing (which was magical, despite the deerflies). Others went shopping, and came back with reports of wonderful little shops and special treasures. Some walked trails, Rebecca took two of the kids to the waterpark, and a few went for the ultimate self-indulgence: a good book and a good nap.
Saturday night the ‘Owl Lady’ came with wonderful fierce birds and many tales to tell.
Then there was Free Dancing for those who had a little energy left.
Sunday we rose to breakfast, and discussed the W&R awards while we ate. We gathered once more around the altar, opening the circle (readings provided by Katie) and bid each other a safe trip back. It was fun, which was exactly what we intended.
