SacredA Celebration of Women’s Circles Spirituality 2009 February 13-14, 2009 Washington National Cathedral ome be empowered to live with love as the collective priority for action. CJoin this diverse chorus of voices and reap a harvest of pragmatic spiritual learning. Renowned Afghan women’s Latina music religious historian empowerment activist bridge-builder Diana Sáez Karen Armstrong Sakena Yacoobi with Coral Cantigas Pioneer of spiritual Christian interfaith leader Green jobs visionary Award-winning transformation the Rev. Joan Brown and MacArthur “genius” singer-songwriter Elizabeth Lesser Campbell Majora Carter Beth Nielsen Chapman Experience a deep sense of women’s spiritual community, woven by guides from diverse traditions who honor our common roots in compassion. Workshops on putting love into action by more than 40 teachers of transformation including Tsultrim Allione, Marjory Zoet Bankson, Sera Beak, Esther de Waal, Marita Golden, LOOK Helen LaKelly Hunt, Joanna Macy, M.J. Ryan, and Gail Straub. INSIDE Topics include transforming conflict, romantic love as a spiritual path, healing the mother-daughter FOR relationship, empowerment through writing, spiritually grounded activism, and much more. MORE! Opportunities for sister-teacher conversations with keynoters. Love takes time: daylong pre-conference sessions for extended exploration. Weaving Conference Community Schedule hether we arrive tired at the end of a busy week or keyed up Friday, for the celebration, these seasoned leaders of creative play, February 13 meditation, and religious rituals will usher us into a spiritual 10 AM–4 PM community of trust and care. W Pre-Conference Co-founder of the transformative practice InterPlay, Intensives Cynthia Winton-Henry will lead us in simple movements that embody our own wisdom and also encourage us to begin 4–6:30 PM to move together. Dinner Break The Rt. Rev. Carol Gallagher is a Cherokee Episcopal bishop who will 7–9:30 PM invoke the presence of the divine and call Evening Plenary in the sacred directions of the living planet from the physical heart center of the Gathering Cathedral. with keynotes by Karen Armstrong and Sharon Salzberg is an internationally recognized Buddhist Sakena Yacoobi, and a meditation teacher and founder of the Insight Meditation Society. She will help us tap inner reserves of compassion and Coral Cantigas weave a non-judgmental silence filled with lovingkindness. interactive concert Rabbi Phyllis Berman, Jewish Renewal Movement leader, assisted by Holly Taya Saturday, Shere, will conduct an interfaith Shabbat February 14 open for all to participate. This holy time 7:30–8:15 AM begins Friday evening, and we will all celebrate its close at the end of Saturday. Early Morning Spiritual Practices Celtic and Benedictine spirituality scholar and wise elder Esther de Waal will offer 8:30–9:30 AM blessings of courage and peace from these historic Christian traditions. Morning Plenary Gathering with keynote by Elizabeth Lesser 10–11:30 AM Dear Friends, Morning Workshop he energy of love is abundant and resilient—and immune to the Dow Session Jones Industrial Average. Science affirms that neural intelligence also resides T in the heart. Brain scans show our capacity to generate compassion. We 11:30 AM–1:30 PM understand more fully that self-fulfillment and helping others are complementary Lunch Break and generative ingredients of health and happiness. The force of love will define this extraordinary era of change if we continue putting it into creative action, deepening and Booksigning and widening the spheres in which we commit to this sacred task. This year’s Sacred Circles is designed to help you do just that. 1:30–3 PM With love, Afternoon Workshop Session 3:30–5 PM Afternoon Plenary Grace Ogden, Convener and the Sacred Circles Advisory Committee Gathering with keynotes by P.S. You are invited to join the new circle of friends stepping up to sustain Joan Brown Campbell and Sacred Circles now and into the future. If you are someone who needs tuition assistance to be able attend this year, please contact us. Majora Carter, and a Beth Nielsen Chapman Special thanks to the Sister Fund, the Episcopal Church Office of Women’s Ministries, As Kindred closing concert Spirits, and the many individual supporters whose gifts help make Sacred Circles 2009 possible. Friday Pre-Conference Intensives 10 am–4 pm 107 World as Lover, World as Self 101 Feeding Your Demons: 104 Inspiration from Joanna Macy Transforming the Soul To heal our world, Conflict Beth Nielsen let us experience Tsultrim Allione Chapman it afresh as a living Tibetan Buddhism Unlock your creative body in which all teaches a powerful gifts with an inspiring beings are connected. method for facing guide who is navigating Contemporary science, deep ecology, and dissolving fears, a spiritual road in and all major religious traditions illnesses, and emotional stumbling the world of popular music. Chapman contain this vision. Experience this blocks—our “demons.” Come learn this will share a variety of techniques and radical shift in perspective: seeing the approach, first developed by a twelfth approaches for overcoming blocks and world as lover and partner who opens us century Tibetan yogini, that can help fears of failure to allow our creative fire to a wider identity. Joanna will guide us us meet and release “demons” we battle to shine through. She’ll perform songs with teachings and experiential practices every day. To transform these difficulties and illustrate the many ways we can drawn from world-wide movements for into allies is to practice compassion explore this uniquely direct, powerful, peace, justice, and a sane ecology. Joanna and love instead of fear and animosity. and healing form of communication Macy is an author and scholar of Buddhism, Co-sponsored by Insight Meditation and expression. Ranging from contemporary General Systems Theory, deep ecology, and the Community of Washington. One of the Christian to flat-out rock styles, singer- Gaia hypothesis. first Western Buddhist teachers, Tsultrim Allione songwriter Beth Nielsen Chapman has written is founder of Tara Mandala Retreat Center and hits for Faith Hill, Willie Nelson, and Elton John. 108 Art, Being, and Becoming: author of Feeding Your Demons: Ancient A Sufi Exploration 105 Writing from a Wisdom for Resolving Inner Conflict. Salima Raoui Sacred Space Embark on this day’s 102 “Redvolution” Marita Golden journey of color, Sufi Sera Beak Writing can be chant, and creativity. Based on a combustible both a transforming Invoking the divine as cocktail from Beak’s expression of inner we paint and collage, The Red Book, we’ll divinity and a way to we will open to a dynamic inner explore mixing ancient engage ourselves in the dialogue, offering prayer and receiving religious traditions and wider world. Practice writing exercises guidance through what our hands new spiritual beliefs in different genres, consider your create. We will pair the visual art that to create a “redvolutionary” life guided and others’ writing life histories, try emerges with writing our reflections by the sacred feminine. Discover and techniques to allay emotional obstacles, to deepen our understanding of the activate your spiritual superpowers and discuss your writing goals. By day’s experience. Salima Raoui is an artist whose through creative exercises, meditation, end you’ll have created a blueprint Islamic-Sufi path and study of healing practices ritual, journaling, and dialogue. We’ll to continue writing and exploring in inform her art and teaching. She lives in New learn to trust our unique path and inner projects going forward. Marita Golden is York and her native country of Morocco. authority, and create some delicious, author of 14 works of fiction and nonfiction, divine mischief that can help heal the including the award-winning novel AFTER. She 109 The Soul Loves world. Sera Beak is a Harvard-trained scholar is writer-in-residence at the University of the the Body of comparative religion and author of The Red District of Columbia. Cynthia Winton- Book: 106 Rediscovering Ancient Henry A Deliciously Unorthodox Approach to Mystics know that Igniting Your Divine Spark. Paths of a body at play, the Divine 103 Dancing with Shakti dancing, singing, Feminine and opening to the Cheryl Catranbone Rabbi Jill Hammer world is how we find holy ground. Align with the divine and Holly Taya InterPlay is an invitation both mystical in this joyful and Shere and pragmatic—for restoring the centering day of soul, gaining insight, and creating Anusara yoga practice. Do you feel called to embody the grace-filled communion. With and Shakti is the Sanskrit without partners, we will enter paths name for the sacred divine feminine? In the Hebrew Bible of movement, voice, stories, and feminine creative power. Invite this stillness for celebration, healing, and divine energy within your heart to are many paths of women’s sacred discernment. The day includes times of flow through and empower your body quiet and reflection. according to yoga’s universal alignment service—hidden and All abilities welcomed. Cynthia Winton- principles. Our revitalizing morning revealed. Prophetess, midwife, wise Henry co-founded InterPlay. yoga session will lead to an afternoon woman, seeker, weaver, and others She authored What the Body Wants, and the of gentle poses, meditation, journaling, offer us surprisingly contemporary forthcoming Chasing the Dance of Life. breathwork, and Yoga Nidra. Cheryl models. Through text study, ritual, Catranbone is a certified Anusara yoga teacher and experiential practice, we’ll clarify affiliated with the Willow Street Yoga Center our personal journeys and gifts of and the Yoga Center of Columbia, Md. leadership. Rabbi Jill Hammer, Ph.D., directs spiritual education at the Academy of Jewish Religion and is author of Sisters at Sinai: New Tales of Biblical Women. Holly Shere serves as spiritual leader of Olney Kehila Jewish Congregation. They co-founded the Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute.