What is a Retreat?
A retreat serves the body, mind and spirit by allowing time to find greater inner peace. When you find inner peace, you move the world toward peace. This is why it is vital to escape from the world’s bombardment of sounds and images and take time for the mind and heart to come to stillness.
Why retreat?
People go on retreat for a number of reasons that generally focus on positive personal change:
Relax at a deep level
Rejuvenate your Spirit
Take time for reflection
Gain clarity on an issue or your life path
Find meaning in your life beyond daily or material concerns
Heal
Practice your Faith
Contemplate
Create
Types of Retreats
Retreats vary as widely as the people who go on retreat. Sites for a retreat include spas, cabins, monastery guest houses, hot springs, ashrams, zendos, bed and breakfasts, and camping areas like Our Haven. A retreat can also include activities like vision quests and pilgrimages. Most retreats are very quiet places that focus on contemplation, even if group sessions get rowdy.
Who Can Retreat?
Personal retreats are most often taken alone, because a solitary retreat allows for the greatest time for self-reflection. Group retreats often focus on classes or events, and are therefore more suitable for groups of people. Some retreat centers require that each person retreat as an individual; others allow couples and groups to share accommodations; still others separate people based on gender. Our retreat is for anyone who identifies as a woman in their daily lives.
What Others Say About Retreats
The following is a collection of quotes from various writers about retreats.
Concerning Retreats in General:
"If we don't get there, the mind will take us there anyway. We must retreat to survive."
~ Marcie Telandar
"We wihdrawl not only from the concerns of the world and its preoccupations but from the incessant monologue and concrns within ourselves, in order for something else to come into being."
~ Deena Metzger, Writing for Your Life
"I am here alone for the first time in weeks, to take up my 'real' life again at last. That is what is strange—that friends, even passionate love, are not my real life, unless there is time alone in which to explore what is happening or what has happened."
~ May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude
"A retreat is moving consciously and by my own choice into space where I can be alone with the Divine"
~ Marion Woodman
"You have a solemn obligation to take care of yourself because you never know when the world will need you."
~ Rabbi Hillel
"Nowhere can a man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul."
~ Aung San Suu Kyi
"Solitude restores the harmonies of the body no less than those of the soul."
~Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre
Concerning Silent Retreats:
"Silence is the soul’s oxygen, "the true friend who never betrays," wrote Confucius; "the one and only voice of God," according to Melville. In silence, you can hear your soul’s guidance."
~From Entering the Castle by Caroline Myss
"Within each of us is a silence, asilence as vast as the universe.We are afraid of it. And we long for it. And when we experience the silence, we remember who we are."
~ Gunilla Norris, Sharing Silence
"Only she who listens can speak"
~ Dag Hammarskjold
"Out of silence mystery comes, and magic, and the delicate awareness of unreasoning things."
-Eleanor Dark
Retreat Literature
There are many great books about taking a retreat of your own, or for taking on retreat with you. Here are some of our favorites. Click on the images to be transported to the Amazon.com page for that book.
Books About Women's Retreats and Circles
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Woman's Retreat Book: A Guide to Restoring, Rediscovering and Reawakening Your True Self --In a Moment, An Hour, Or a Weekend
Jennifer Louden
This is our favorite retreat book and one we return to again and again! This book is perfect for creating your own retreat time and inspired the Women's Goddess Retreat. |
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20-Minute Retreats: Revive Your Spirit in Just Minutes a Day with Simple, Self-Led Practices
Dr. Rachel Harris
You too can recreate the feeling of retreat with only a few spare moments. |
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Sacred Circles: A Guide To Creating Your Own Women's Spirituality Group
Robin Deen Carnes & Sally Craig
A guide for taking the concept of the women's circle from retreat to everyday exisitance. |
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A Weekend to Change Your Life: Find Your Authentic Self After a Lifetime of Being All Things to All People
Joan Anderson
A wonderful book about seaside retreats. |
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Calling the Circle: The First and Future Culture
Christina Baldwin
A key text in the movent towards circles in our culture. For women and men. |
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The Millionth Circle: How to Change Ourselves and The World--The Essential Guide to Women's Circles
Jean Shinoda Bolen
This slim and powerful book is written like poetry and speaks of a vision to change the world one circle of women at a time. |
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Girl Group Confidential: The Ultimate Guide to Starting, Running and Enjoying Your Own Women's Group
Jennifer Worick
Be they quilting bees, bridge clubs, volleyball teams, book clubs, ladies who lunch, or conciousness-raising groups, girl groups can change your life and the world! |
Books to Take on a Women's Retreat
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Imagine a Woman in Love with Herself: Embracing Your Wisdom and Wholeness
Patricia Lynn Reilly & SARK
Excerpt. © All rights reserved.
Imagine a woman who believes it is right and good she is a woman.
A woman who honors her experience and tells her stories.
Who refuses to carry the sins of others within her body and life.
Imagine a woman who has acknowledged the past's influence on the present.
A woman who has walked through her past.
Who has healed into the present.
Imagine a woman who names her own gods.
A woman who imagines the divine in her image and likeness.
Who designs her own spirituality and allows it to inform her daily life.
Imagine a woman in love with her own body.
A woman who believes her body is enough, just as it is.
Who celebrates her body's rhythms and cycles as an exquisite resource.
Imagine a woman who honors the body of the Goddess in her changing body.
A woman who celebrates the accumulation of her years and her wisdom.
Who refuses to use her precious life-energy disguising the changes in her body and life.
Imagine a woman who values the women in her life.
A woman who sits in circles of women.
Who is reminded of the truth about herself when she forgets.
IMAGINE YOURSELF AS THIS WOMAN. |
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Circle of Stones: Woman's Journey to Herself
Judith Duerk
A book of women's self reflection, unfolding, and spirituality. |
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Seasons of Change : Using Nature's Wisdom to Grow Through Life's Inevitable Ups and Downs
Carol L. McClelland
A nature-friendly approach to recognizing and celebrating our cycles. |
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Women Who Run with the Wolves
Clarissa Pinkola Estes
This book contains enough deep inner working material for a lifetime of retreats. It explores the development of a woman's soul through story and her wild nature. One of our favorites. |
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The Circle Of Life: The Heart's Journey Through The Seasons
Joyce Rupp & Macrina Wiederkehr
Another joyful book about using the seasons of nature as a symbol for the seasons of our lives. Written by two lively, juicy nuns! |
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Gift from the Sea
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
A classic reflection of one woman's time retreating by the sea. Timeless, and full of meaning. |
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Succulent Wild Woman
SARK
All of SARK's books are full of juicy life and succulent inspiration. This is her opus. |
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The Heroine's Journey
Maureen Murdock
Explores how women can carve out their own journey to self realization and wholeness through archtypical symbolism and mythology. |
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The Way of Woman: Awakening the Perennial Feminine
Helen M. Luke & Marion Woodman
Uses Jungian psychology to create a profound and meaningful roadmap to a woman's soul. |
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