Friday Workshops (E)
April 23, 2021
11:00 - 13:00 PDT
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Renaissance 2021 Attendees:
Begin each morning with uplifting contemplative practices offered from 06:00 – 07:00 PDT.
E1
Dreams: A Portal to the Divine
Spiritual Direction is a psycho-spiritual relationship between seeker and companion and between the outer world of ego and the inner world of spirit. In spiritual companionship we often hear questions like “What does God want me to do or be?” “Where is there meaning in this situation?” “How do I know that what I hear is the voice of the Divine?”
What if there is a portal to the answers for these questions that is easily accessible and ever present? There is such a portal and it is dream work – the practice of translating messages from our nightly dreams into waking life understanding. Across time and religious traditions, dreams are known as a profound source of communication with the Divine.
This workshop introduces the practice of projective dream work based on the analytical psychology methods of Carl Jung; offering tools for navigating the path toward spiritual maturity, bypassing ego resistance by using the language of symbol and metaphor, imagery and story. Workshop participants are invited to bring a dream to share, or to participate in a circle to process a dream. The deep listening and shared inner images of the group experience introduce the deep inner work used to address psychological and spiritual issues frustrating our spiritual growth. Dream work enables practitioners to engage in social justice concerns motivated by compassion and reconciliation rather than projection, anger and self-righteousness. The projective method offers a model for both group and individual work and many Spiritual Directors find dream work to be a deepening and enriching modality for accessing divine wisdom in spiritual companionship. A brief lecture, with time for questions follows the facilitated dream group experience to expand on the foundational principles of Jungian psychology as a path to psychological wholeness, spiritual resilience and integrated social engagement.
Allen Proctor
Allen Proctor is the Director of the Haden Institute, a program that trains Spiritual Directors and Dream Workers in the Jungian, Mystical Christian tradition. Allen is a Spiritual Director, Dream Work Facilitator and Presbyterian minister. Throughout his ministry he has worked with others on questions of identity, relationships, vocation and meaning, using dream work, the Enneagram, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, meditation practices and Celtic spirituality.
E2
Evolution of East Meets West: Meeting Contemporary Needs of Spiritual Direction with Sanatan Dharma
Sanatan Dharma, or the age old philosophy identified as Hinduism, has informed Western spiritual direction since Swami Vivekananda spoke in Chicago in 1893. Spiritual directors are individuals committed to helping others seek and find connection with a higher power, however that power might be defined. In this session, we will explore those intersections of East and West just integrating into spiritual direction and forming new paths: including but not exclusive to 1) the role of Mother as first spiritual companion and the Divine Feminine, including Movement towards balance of Divine Masculine and Feminine (Shiv and Shakti), 2) the call to be in spiritual companionship while active in life and earlier and earlier in human development and the intersection of contemplation and activism, and 3) appreciating the new forms and formats of spiritual companionship emerging (how can we work together to best serve team human).
Preeta Banerjee
Preeta Banerjee, Ph D is a spiritual companion who draws on a broad and deep range of experience, having spent 20 years in academia, coaching and consulting as an advocate, educator, researcher and author. She is a strong voice for combining spirituality, creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship and social change. Her daily practice comes from yoga, Let Your Yoga Dance, meditation, as well as being an Ayurveda and a black-belt Tae Kwon Do practitioner. Co-founder and partner at WhiteLeaf Advisors LLC, she previously led a team at Deloitte and was a business school professor at Brandeis and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She has a PhD in Strategic Management from the Wharton School and BS in Computational Biology and Business from Carnegie Mellon.
E3
What Alice in Wonderland Can Teach Spiritual Companions
Using the story Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, this workshop will present three qualities experienced by Alice and often mirrored in the spiritual journey: a willingness to be messy, the gift of curiosity, and the sheer grace of courage. Through input, story-telling, personal reflection and sharing, we will journey with Alice as she leaves her comfortable, secure place on the riverbank and tumbles down a rabbit hole into new realities. Frequently, individuals come to spiritual direction when their comfortable, secure places no longer match the lived reality of their lives. Like Alice, they question and struggle with what is happening within. They ask questions and often look first outside of themselves for solutions. As spiritual directors we sit with them while they discern the answers that lie within themselves.
As spiritual directors we too face the issues of messiness, curiosity, and courage. Believing that we attend to others in the same ways we attend to ourselves we must be aware of and attentive to the life experiences that have shaped how we respond to these issues.
Knowing myself and being attentive to another creates a dynamic flow between the director and the directee. Sometimes that flow includes messiness, curiosity and courage!”
Lucy Abbott-Tucker
Lucy Abbott-Tucker has worked in adult formation and the preparation of people for the ministry of spiritual direction for thirty-six years. She prepared for the ministry of spiritual direction at the Institute for Spiritual Leadership, Chicago and then completed a Master’s Degree at Catholic Theological Union, Chicago.
Lucy has been active in the work of Spiritual Directors International, serving on the first Coordinating Council and chairing the committee that prepared the Guidelines for Ethical Conduct. As well as working on the recent revisions of that document Lucy recently completed a Curriculum to accompany the Guidelines for Ethical Conduct. She also worked on the committee that prepared the Portrait of a Spiritual Director and the Principles for Training Programs published by Spiritual Directors International. In addition to her ministry as a spiritual director and supervisor, Lucy currently teaches at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. She also works in training programs in the United States, Europe, Australia, and Canada. Lucy authored the recent book from SDI Press, Spiritual Direction Supervision: Principles, Practices, and Storytelling.
E4
Examen a la Play Dough
Remember how fun it was to play with play dough as a kid? Remember the imaginary world you could create? Wouldn’t it be great to explore and wonder like that again and hear from Source at the same time? In this hands-on, kinesthetic workshop, professional potter, Nancy Shadlock will lead you into that kind of creativity and insight. The bulk of this presentation will be experiential, using clay (ahem… play dough) to mold an image of current limitations or struggles, and then to form another totem of what is the fullness of life you are being called to.
Think of doing the examen, but in 3D!
As a spiritual director, life coach and potter, Nancy will help you tune in to the deepest parts of yourself and hear how the Divine is speaking to you in this particular time. This exercise will help you bypass your analytical and often critical left brain so you can tune into your creative right brain and hear what you are being called to—your unique next steps in sharing it with the world in the most impactful way. This workshop is perfect for those who are ready to hear from Source in a fresh way or those who regularly companion others and are looking to add a form of artistic expression to their practice.
*This workshop requires playdough!! Please come prepared with a fist-sized ball of playdough. You can make it at home or buy some from your local dollar store*
Nancy Shadlock
Nancy Shadlock, MA, is the CEO and founder of Centered Life Coaching (www.centered.ca). Nancy has a Master of Arts in Spiritual Formation from Carey Theological in Vancouver. After completing spiritual direction training through SoulStream and serving many years as a spiritual director, she expanded into the coaching field to help people hear the divine in not just their spiritual life, but also the pain points that show up in their business, relationships and health.
Nancy grew up in a conservative Christian household as a missionary kid in Kenya. She has gradually grown and expanded her spirituality to notice the Divine in everything! Nancy had to face into some of her own limiting beliefs to accept and celebrate herself as a queer woman and has been amazed at all the new life and growth that has emerged from that deep, authentic awareness and alignment. She loves to bring creativity into all areas of life, even procreation! Nancy and her wife were pregnant at the same time and now have two 2-year-olds who were born 25 days apart.
Centered Coaching is sustained by Nancy’s desire to create a better world for her children. She knows that as each person gets clear on who they were created to be, and what their particular gifting is, the whole world is enriched when they let that shine.
E5
Going Out to Go In: Companioning Seekers of Spiritual Vision and Discernment in Wild Natural Spaces
Spiritual companions are often familiar with the natural world as a powerful place for personal restoration, renewal, inspiration, and deepening of spiritual connection. This workshop will expand awareness of the opportunities presented by time spent in wild natural spaces, and reveal the potential for deeper relationship with Self that comes through more conscious relationships with the beings that we may encounter out of doors, both on the land, and extending out into the comos.
Through a variety of contemplative practices and experiential exercises, participants will be guided to consciously and intentionally listen on multiple “channels” in ways that acknowledge and respect the subtly and nuance of spiritual information presented by the natural world. Drawing on personal experience, traditional knowledge and practice, and various forms of metaphysical inquiry, Jocelyn will also share tools to more skillfully recognize and reflect back the symbols and synchronicities that show up as significant and transformative for directees.
Jocelyn Burkhart
Jocelyn Burkhart, MEd, is a spiritual companion, coach, teacher, and artist with a passion for embodied awareness and the natural world. Influences in her reflective and intuitive approach include spiritual direction formation with Ontario Jubilee Associates, yoga teacher training at Yasodhara Ashram, and wide ranging study and practice of Shamanic, metaphysical, and energetic approaches. Her doctoral studies explore embodied awareness processes for spiritual discernment, shadow work, and healing. Jocelyn has over 20 years experience as a facilitator of adult experiential education and self awareness programs, including 5 years instructing holistic education courses for preservice teachers and graduate students at Lakehead University. Her private practice offerings include spiritual direction and supervision, as well as facilitator formation and business coaching for soul centered companions, coaches, healers, and leaders. www.jocelynburkhart.com
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Renaissance 2021 Attendees:
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Friday Workshops (F)
April 23, 2021
15:00 - 17:00 PDT
F1
Racism Through the Lens of White Privilege: A Spiritual Quest
White people often experience race and racism as belonging to others rather than being our issue as well. We need to become aware that we, by the fact of our whiteness and our white privilege, are an integral part of systemic, structural and institutional racism that have been part of United States culture from its founding. We who have this unearned advantage need to come to terms with our white privilege. As we begin to acknowledge how we benefit from the norm of whiteness and the impact it has on people of color, we can become more prepared to take part in dismantling institutional oppression and unjust systems.
Information and mis-information about racism and white privilege is available everywhere. People often react to this information with strong opinions and deep emotions turning many conversations about race into fierce arguments that serve no one. There is another way to respond to the information about race and white privilege. We can engage in contemplative conversations that serve to transfer the information and our strong reactions from head to heart. This workshop will be such an experience as we turn inward to reflect on our own lived experience.
Story telling will be the vehicle for opening our hearts. Contemplative sharing and compassionate listening can help us open our eyes to the hidden parts of ourselves that have contributed to the continuation of racial oppression. These insights carry the opportunity to integrate our new awareness into our ongoing and expanding sense of who we are and who we are called to be. This is soul work and takes courage and the support of a spiritual community to become a healing presence in a broken and hurting world.
Jane Vennard
Reverend Jane Vennard was called to the ministry of teaching and spiritual direction and ordained in 1987 by the United Church of Christ. She is retired senior adjunct faculty at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado, USA. Jane has presented workshops at SDI conferences and offered a Plenary Address at the 20th anniversary celebration in 2010. She has led programs for Spiritual Direction Colorado’s continuing education events including one afternoon presentation on the topic of racism and a three-part webinar on White privilege. A number of church groups have also sponsored programs on white privilege including UU, Catholic, Episcopal, and UCC. Jane has taught in spiritual direction formation programs at Garrett Theological Seminary, Columbia Theological Seminary and The Community of Christ spiritual formation program. She is a spiritual director in private practice and the author of eight books.
F2
Innovations for Expanding Spiritual Companioning: Sharing the Sacred in Ordinary Moments
Because our survival in these stressful times demands greater spiritual awakening, the Interfaith Amigos step beyond their separate traditions to share universal practices transcending boundaries of institution, affiliation, gender, race, economics, and age to more directly deepen a connective consciousness through the evolution of spiritual companioning. This workshop provides experience in specific practices participants can use in any setting to encourage the healing that spiritual companionship provides.
Turning Inward: Finding the Inner and Outer Spiritual Companion. Exercises designed to awaken our deeper identity and celebrate the sacred in every human encounter.
Turning Outward: How to Invite and Utilize Personal Stories. Processes helping us transcend differences and cut through the separation of polarization.
Turning Together: Expanding Spiritual Companioning Opportunities. Ways to support a natural expansion of spiritual connection
Learning from their experiences engaging together in hundreds of presentations nationally and internationally over the past 18-plus years, Rabbi Ted Falcon, Imam Jamal Rahman, and Pastor Don Mackenzie have realized that true spirituality is always universal. The authentic spiritual teachings from all great religions celebrate an inclusivity transcending the individual ego as well as the ego of any particular tradition.
The Interfaith Amigos: Jamal Rahman, Don MacKenzie and Ted Falcon
Imam Jamal, Rabbi Ted, and Pastor Don came together following the tragedy of 9/11/2001. Their work together became a Calling, challenging them to move beyond untold centuries of separation and pain to realize their common ground of spiritual teaching. Their books include, Getting to the Heart of Interfaith (2009), Religion Gone Astray (2011), and Finding Peace Through Spiritual Practice (2016). They are currently working on their fourth book, Beyond Interfaith: Why Religion Has Failed and What We Can Do About It. Further information about their work can be found at their website, www.InterfaithAmigos.com
F3
Body, Soul, and the World: Liberating Life Within and Among with a Very Special Welcome to Recovering Serious People
Play. Reflect. Gain Tools. Grow. Glow. We are in a time of re-centering the wisdom of the body. As we shift, we ask what does the body want? Freedom? Love? Belonging? Your birthright practices– your stories, movement, voice, connection, and stillness bring you power and guidance. Is this why dominant forces repeatedly oppress and outlaw the embodied wisdom ways? In this workshop, you’ll explore easy ideas and enjoyable practices that help unlock wisdom and creativity in your body as it is. You’ll research affirmation, playfulness and take time to notice and reflect each step of the way. You also take away tools and creative methods that are helping individuals and groups around the world to shift from trauma and stress to grace and spiritual health.
Soyinka Rahim
Soyinka Rahim, GSP, is a Grassroots Spiritual Practitioner and thefounder of BIBOLOVE, which stands for breathe in, breathe out love, as well as an InterPlay leader. She brings her talents to raising thevibration of love across cultural, racial, gender, and economic divides.She is an all-around creative: dancer, choreographer, found-objectsartist, poet, singer, songwriter musician. Her BIBOLOVE chants andsongs are available at CD Baby for download or CD purchase. She has been a Conference Weaver and facilitator at the Facing Race conference, the Parliament of World Religions, and many other events.
Cynthia Winton-Henry
Cynthia Winton-Henry coaches leaders who are seeking body wisdom and spiritual intelligence for our time. A co-founder of InterPlay, an active, creative approach to unlock the wisdom of the body, she was featured at the International Expressive Arts Conference, The International Enneagram Conference, The National Equity Project, and the Art Religion Culture conference. She has taught in seminaries and conferences around the world and is the author of What the Body Wants, Having It All: Body, Mind, Heart & Spirit Together Again at Last, Dance: A Sacred Art: Discovering the Joy of Movement as Spiritual Practice, and Chasing the Dance of Life: A Faith Journey. Her current writing is on Body Wisdom, Activism, and “Ensoulment Initiations.”
F4
The Here & WOW! Spiritual Companionship in the Digital Age
As spiritual companioning in the age of COVID-19 leans into digital technology, we’ve been given a great opportunity to hone our spiritual technologies as well. As interspiritual pioneer Wayne Teasdale wrote in his seminal book The Mystic Heart: Discovering a Universal Spirituality in the World’s Religions: “Daily spiritual practice is the technology of inner change.”
While long-time contemplative practitioners may be a bit less tech-savvy in terms of digital media, they’ve cultivated great depth and skill in spiritual technologies. And while the younger generations navigate digital technologies with ease, they often hunger for more authentic spiritual technologies and the inner change they bring. And so, intergenerational bridges are being built where the collaborative technologies of the Digital Age and the Interspiritual Age meet.
We hope you’ll join us for this interactive and experiential workshop where you’ll come away with practical tools to help you bridge the digital/spiritual divide.
The Interspiritual/Digital Age is here. Wow!
Kate Sheehan Roach
Kate Sheehan Roach began her editorial career with Bedford Books of St. Martin’s Press, later serving as founding editor of Contemplative Journal and as managing editor of the Spirituality channel at Patheos.com. She now serves as Director of Content for ContemplativeLife.org and as a founding member Transformation365.org. She is a certified Centering Prayer facilitator with Contemplative Outreach, and she serves on the national service team of 12 Step Outreach and the North America Leadership Council for the United Religions Initiative. She holds a BA in American Studies from Mt. Holyoke College and an MA in History from the University of Connecticut.
Jeff Genung
Jeff Genung is co-founder and president of Contemplative Life, a non-profit digital hub that connects people and communities with transformative practices. He’s also a core team member of an on-line experiential practice network called Transformation365.org and a Prosocial facilitator, training groups to integrate science and spirituality. A lifelong student and teacher of contemplative practices, Jeff’s professional career as a technology executive and entrepreneur is now focused on developing technology solutions that help people integrate practices in authentic and meaningful ways. Jeff has a BS in Business from Cornell University and an MDiv from Sophia Divinity School.
F5
SoulCollage®: A Window into the Soul – A Tool for Self Discovery and Applications for Spiritual Companions
In this workshop attendees will experience SoulCollage® as a tool for self-discovery, shared community and contemplation. With a few simple elements: scissors, glue, magazine images and a matte board, you will create an amazing portal into your inner self, as well as a connection to a wider community. Participants will be guided through the process of quietly grounding and choosing images, then assembling them onto a matte board to make a card. We will then use the card to do a reading: ask a question and receive an answer from your own Inner Wisdom. The process is easy, accessible, quiet, fun and contemplative. It has a wide range of uses both in spiritual companionship, therapeutic venues, private prayer or meditation and community building within a group. The images and experience of SoulCollage® create a community that unites and connects all cultures, generations and spiritualities. No art experience is necessary and a supply list will be provided to all participants before the workshop.
Please check the handouts provided on Whova, the conference app, for a list of supplies you will need for this workshop
Teresa Knipper
Teresa Knipper is a certified Soul Collage® Facilitator and Spiritual Director. Teresa has a curiosity about how the inner journey can be expressed and explored through intuitive art such as Soul Collage®, mandalas, and poetry writing. It is her deepest joy to share her passion with others. She received her Spiritual Direction certification at the Upper Room Spiritual Center in Neptune, NJ, has attended the Awakening the Creative Spirit training with Christine Valters Paintner and Betsey Beckman and completed training in Contemplative Leadership through Oasis Ministries.