Folding & Unfolding: Reflecting on the Past Year

“Winter is kind: she points us in her quiet soft way towards our inner self, towards this annual time of peace and reflection, embracing the darkness and forgiving, accepting and loving, embracing goodbye to the past year.” – Brigit Anna McNeill

This is the first of two three-hour online retreats inspired by the season of the year in the northern hemisphere. The second is on Saturday 9 January and you are welcome to attend either or both.

Guided by the Courage and Renewal® approach pioneered by American Quaker, Parker J. Palmer, we will look back and move forward together, creating a sacred, confidential space in which to do our own inner work in solitude and community. We will have the opportunity to listen generously to our inner teacher and to one another in small groups and the whole group, speaking from the heart. A Circle of Trust® is enriched by metaphors. In this space everything we do is invitational, and we honour a commitment to no fixing, advising, saving, or correcting. Instead, listening generously and learning to ask open, honest questions can open new doors in our relationships with self and others as we nurture our capacity for reflection, renewal and hope.

In the second retreat of this two-part series in January, there will be the opportunity to prepare the ground for 2027 – not “making resolutions”, but rather waiting, hibernating, mulching… The invitation is also, if you are able to attend both retreats, to embrace the period of descent and rest between the two retreats, of going within ourselves and taking in all that we have been through, all that has passed in the full year which is coming to a close… like nature and the animal kingdom around us, this time of hibernation is so necessary for our tired limbs, our burdened minds.