From Age-ing to Sage-ing
Embracing the Wisdom of Life’s Journey
Aging is the most common human experience, but how we view that experience has a significant impact on how we harvest the gifts given and the gifts received in our life. We are living longer these days and so often we hear the phrase, “This getting older ****.” This common phrase we hear and say can become our daily mantra. Does this serve you and enhance your being?
Can you embrace growing older to cultivate the inwardness from which your wisdom grows?
What is your meaningful spiritual legacy?
How can you use your experience and wisdom to contribute to help the world?
These are some of the questions and insights for our day of reflection. Using resources of Henri Nouwen, Harry Moody, Joan Chittister, Connie Zweig, Ph.D., and Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and Ronald Miller, Sharon will guide us in meaningful conversation, prayer, and provide resources for your self-reflection.
The Civility Initiative
Living Into a Conscious Life of Care and Compassion
Every day in our encounters and contacts with the world around us – with family, friends, coworkers, and neighbors, as well as in social media and news programs, we experience a gamut of actions, reactions, and responses. Some are positive and inspiring, and others are divisive, negative, and demoralizing. In recent years and even now, we witness racial unrest, overt and covert cultural biases, and the utilization of preconceived and intolerant attitudes and language in personal, political, and public arenas.
This lack of civility in our daily encounters is discouraging at the very least. Many of us find that our personal conversations are becoming divisive and are breaking apart close friendships and family relationships. The campaigns and Presidential election of 2024 have brought this even more to the forefront.
In honor of the legacy left by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., we will focus on the core values that comprised his life and his teachings. Our time together will include brief presentation, reflective silence, and small group conversation as we ponder the question, “Who is the Holy One that I reflect to the world?” What is the message I proclaim?
Transformative Conversations
A WOMAN’S JOURNEY THROUGH THE SEASONS
Walking with Mindfulness, Appreciation, and Expectation
Welcome to Women’s Transformational Conversations on the seasons of the year, which focuses on our journey through the seasons.
Seasons come and go, and we experience years flying by. How often do we hear ourselves say, “Where did the year go?” Perhaps we let time slip by without being present to the moment.
Before we embark on a journey, no matter how long or short, we make sure that we pack the essentials we will need. Sometimes we pack more than we need just in case. This year’s seasonal conversations will focus on our journey as women through the seasons of our lives. I invite you to get your backpack ready and take what you think you will need for the journey.
In Autumn our destination will be Letting Go, in Winter it will be Awareness, in Spring Awakening, and in Summer our final destination will take us to Gratitude. Before we reach our final destination of Gratitude, the journey will require openness and an honest look at ourselves. Our backpacks will be filled and emptied.
Each session is planned to take some time reflecting back on the past season and reflecting on the awareness we bring as we enter another. The cycle of the seasons offers us a rich reminder of what is necessary to enter each one and embrace the spirit and meaning it holds for us. The element of each season depends on the element of the one prior… A learning and spirited journey through and within.
You will receive the readings with a few questions, upon registration, for you to reflect on prior to our meeting. I look forward to enjoying this time with you and learning from you in this gracious space.
Autum: Letting Go
Autumn brings the cooler breezes, pumpkins, flowering chrysanthemums, and the radiance and beauty of the trees. What once were rich leaves of green now reveal to us their splendor and radiance in their changing color. Yet, it is also a season of “falling away;” harvesting the many gifts that been given us making way for new ones to be born. A leaf does not lose its’ balance as it falls from the tree; rather it lets itself be carried to where it may land. It allows its equilibrium, its sense of rest and balance to be guided by the equal action of opposing forces. Let us imagine ourselves as leaves this autumn; allowing ourselves to be gently carried by the breath of the spirit to places within our hearts we may not have ever been. Would you be interested in exploring this with others?
Winter: Awareness
Our next destination is winter “Awareness.” Hopefully in letting go; we are able to be more aware of who we are and what is around us. Winter calls us to hunker down– snuggle under a cozy blanket or sit by the glow of a fire– a time to be enfolded in warmth. It is the invitation of winter to enter the warm cave of our hearts where we allow ourselves to rest, ponder, and allow our inner selves to surface and be embraced. Rather than seeking light, what if we were to quell the impulse to seek and rather let the light come naturally from the space of darkness? During the season of winter, we spend much of our day in the darkness of winter. Perhaps we can practice waiting in awareness, ever open to the light that will emerge naturally. If we can hold this awareness as a possibility, then we can be in a place where darkness and light converge into one.
Spring: Awakening
We have stepped out of the darkness of winter awareness and are invited into the light of spring awakening, like a dance. What was germinating in our spiritual self is now coming alive, breaking forth so to speak. The quote by Anais Nin comes to mind, “And then the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk to bloom.” Something happens to us in the spring. It awakens and enlivens us like no other season can. We feel lighter, new energies bloom; there is an awakening within our being that urges us with a new invitation to awaken to all that is wonderful in the world. Nature unfolds a new presentation of her beauty and fills the air with her wondrous smells of newness. We are captivated with new life. Harriet Ann Jacobs says it so beautifully, “The beautiful spring came; and when nature resumes her loveliness, the human soul is apt to revive also.”
Summer: Gratitude
Summer comes alive bringing the anticipation of rest, longer days, vacations, relaxation, seeing family and friends we haven’t seen for a while. We harvest the foods we have planted in our gardens, and we pause to sit and admire the handiwork of creation. Summer is usually the time of visible changes, in nature and in our routines. Life’s challenges don’t go away; yet just the fact that it is summer we may be able to see them differently. As with every season, summer reminds us that nothing lasts forever. As we age, the season seems to go by faster. We look back at it and say, “where has it gone? I seem to have missed it!” Give yourself permission to pause, reflect, remember, and savor the joy this season brings. What can we change in our daily routine that will help us harness the energy to revitalize our bodies, minds, and souls?
