Spring 2013
April 25 – 28, 2013
100 Tricks for Writers:
A retreat with poet and writer Kim Stafford
What story do you carry that is so precious you must tell it…yet so daunting, so big, so strange, you can’t? At this retreat, we will explore one way forward: telling small episodes in the big mystery, and finding a way for them together to hint at what can’t be told. For one can compose a work of any length, given writing solitudes of any brevity, by designing a cell-like structure to cradle a set of lively fragments. We will practice step one in this empowering process: writing the table of contents for your book by titling key memories from your life, and thus designing a way forward from faltering silence toward generous abundance.
Fee: $450 (Advanced registration required)
Dominican’s School of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences will host a reading and book signing on Wednesday, April 24, at 7:30 p.m. in the Garden Room at Dominican’s Edgehill Mansion, 75 Magnolia Avenue in San Rafael. Stafford will read from his most recent book, a memoir titled 100 Tricks Every Boy Can Do: How My Brother Disappeared. For more information about the book signing event, please call 415.482.3528.
About Kim Stafford
Stafford has taught since 1979 at Lewis and Clark College, where he is the founding director of the Northwest Writing Institute and co-director of the Documentary Studies program. He also serves as the literary executor for the estate of poet William Stafford, his late father.
Stafford has worked as an oral historian, letterpress printer, editor, photographer, teacher, and visiting writer in communities and colleges across the country, and in Italy, Scotland, and Bhutan. He has published a dozen books of poetry and prose, including The Muses Among Us: Eloquent Listening and Other Pleasures of the Writer’s Craft; Early Morning: Remembering My Father, William Stafford; and Having Everything Right: Essays of Place. Stafford has received two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, the Oregon Governor’s Arts Award, and a Western States Book Award.
Summer 2013
June 24 – 30, 2013
Through the Lens of Celtic Spirituality
A week-long contemplative retreat with Michael Fish, OSB Cam, who will lead participants in an exploration into this ancient, sacred path, delving into its rich history, teaching and tradition. Together with participants, Michael will assist in unpacking the new vision it offers of our image of God, our humanity, Church and worship and our idea of ecology. These days will provide ample opportunity for rest, reflection and immersion into nature and creation. Michael, a Benedictine monk of New Camaldoli and a native of South Africa, still draws upon the wisdom, beauty and simplicity of the Zulu village life that shaped his own call to the contemplative life. Living as a hermit, he shares the fruit of his contemplative prayer through spiritual direction and retreats. We delight in welcoming him back to Santa Sabina.
Fee: $550
August 5 – 11, 2013
If You Abide in My Word…
A week-long contemplative retreat led by Brian Pierce, OP. English Benedictine monk, Cyprian Smith, writes: “The Word of God is first uttered within the Trinity…But it is also uttered ‘outside’, bringing the created universe into being…Whether we know it or not, we are vibrating with the Word now, at this very moment. If we did not do so, we would immediately cease to exist…” This retreat is an invitation to enter into silence, to listen to and sit contemplatively with the Word of God, in response to Jesus’ invitation: “If you abide in my Word, you are truly my disciples, you will know the truth and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:31-32). We are pleased to have Brian, a friar from the US Southern Province of Dominicans, return to Santa Sabina. His rich and varied ministerial experience includes ministry in Latin America, extended meditation in a contemplative ashram and his current service at the international headquarters for Dominicans in Rome.
Fee: $550
Autumn 2013
November 14 – 17, 2013
Ark to Compassion: Mythic and Scientific Stories that Sustain Us
Linda Gibler, OP, a Dominican Sister of Houston, TX, will lead this cosmologically based retreat. She will draw upon the 13.7 billion year story of elements that surrounds us while incorporating the wisdom of sacred traditions. Guided by these stories, participants will be invited into deeper intimacy with and commitment to the world around us. Linda, mentored by Brian Swimme throughout her studies at the California Institute of Integral Studies, has worked to integrate philosophy, cosmology and consciousness in her own work as teacher, author and retreat leader. She currently is associate academic dean at the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, Texas, and adjunct professor for the Loyola Institute for Ministry.