Conversations:
You are invited to be part of a unique and inspiring Women’s Retreat on the Island of Iona in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland offering you the opportunity,
- to deepen your connection to your own true self, to Spirit, others, and the natural world
- to understand and experience the “Power of Place” and to know what it means to be “at home” in a sacred universe.
- to draw wisdom and inspiration from the deep well-spring of Celtic spirituality and the life-celebrating and Earth-honoring Celtic tradition.
- to cultivate your capacity to live a creative and joyful life
- to help envision a more compassionate and hopeful future for all
- and to take time for the enrichment of your body, mind, heart and soul on the ancient, sacred Island of Iona.
The Iona Women’s Retreat is an invitation to “make pilgrimage,” to gift yourself with a time away from your usual routines and obligations and to open yourself to new learnings and experiences. It is a rare opportunity to enjoy a time of grace in the companionship of other caring women who also have come to Iona to deepen their personal, spiritual and professional lives, and to share the insights and clarity that are within each of us. The beauty and ancientness of the Island will give you a profound experience of the power of place and the way that the places we call home have formed and enriched our lives. The wisdom of the “contrary way” of the Celtic Christian tradition will help you replace conditioned and often unquestioned belief systems with a framework for spiritual life that affirms and celebrates our “original blessedness” and our capacity for lovingness, compassion and active caring for the whole community of life!
We hope you will join us---and please pass the word to women you know and invite them to come with you!
For full information on the program, costs, travel, logistics and photos click here.The Iona Retreats are part of Spirit of Legacy, a project of the Whidbey Institute.
Vivienne Hull has been leading the Iona Retreats annually for many years and Iona has become like home and family. Irish born and a scholar of Celtic spirituality and theology she brings the rich heritage of Iona to life and will introduce you to the people of the Island and special places you might not otherwise discover. With her husband, Fritz Hull, she founded the Chinook Learning Center and the Whidbey Institute on Whidbey Island, Washington and served as Chinook’s Associate Director and faculty for almost twenty years and the Institute’s for ten. She and Fritz recently founded and direct Spirit of Legacy, a project of the Institute, offering seminars, conferences and retreats on Earth, Spirit and the Human Future, including nature awareness programs for young people. She holds a B.A. in English and a M.Ed. in Educational Psychology from the University of Washington and has continued her life-long learning through courses and programs in theology, ecology and human development. She is a contributor to Earth and Spirit, the Spiritual Dimension of the Environmental Crisis and has just completed, Iona, A Guidebook to the Sacred Isle for Clergy and Other Pilgrims (soon to be published). She is a Lindisfarne Fellow and a recipient of the Thomas Berry Award from the Center for Respect of Life and the Environment.
Sheila Kelly has worked on environmental issues since 1972 at the local, national and international, from the United nations Earth Summit in Rio to the Piper's Creek (salmon bearing) watershed in her back yard. Sheila has been a grassroots organizer, community educator, a consultant in public involvement, and a Washington state environmental planner involved in the cleanup and protection of Puget Sound. She has been active throughout the era when the environmentalism of the 1970s evolved into the sustainability movement of the 1990s. She received her BA in Political Science from Gonzaga University in Spokane, and an MPA from the University of Washington, Seattle with a focus on Natural Resource Policy. She is a Trustee of the Charlotte Martin Foundation funding youth and environmental programs in the Pacific Northwest. She serves on the Curriculum Committee of Leadership Tomorrow Seattle, and on the Advisory Council of the Mining History Association. She is the author of Treadwell Gold: An Alaska Saga of Riches and Ruin (University of Alaska Press, 2010) a non-fiction narrative of a 19th Century hard rock gold mining town on the Alaska frontier where her father and aunts were born and raised. www.treadwellgold.com
