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.

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.

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

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