September 13-15, 2024
A hybrid event offered in-person and online via Zoom.
Hosted by Priory Spirituality Center
The retreat starts at 3pm on Friday, September 13, and wraps by noon on Sunday, September 15.
In this retreat, you will explore, savor, and rest in the numinous led by media artist, author and contemplative guide M Freeman. Contemplative Rest is a practice that illuminates and nurtures participants’ somatic experiences of awe, activating intimate encounters with the numinous as resources for cultivating resiliency and peace in ourselves and in the world.
Retreat registration fee is $270. (Cost for lodging and meals is additional.)
You will be redirected to The Priory Spirituality Center website where you can choose how you will participate (in-person or online) and your lodging and dining options, should you choose to stay at the Spirituality Center.
M invites participants to put the healing and softening of their own hearts in service of the collective good, for the benefit of all. This work is not about us alone, it’s about us all. To engage contemplative practice communally is, as Thich Nhat Hanh tells us, “a gift that we can offer ourselves, one another, the city, and the world.”
Tentative Retreat Schedule (watch for updates!)
NOTE: Italicized days/times are solo times
- Friday Sept 13th 3:00-4:45pm | Opening Gathering
- Friday Sept 13th 4:45-6:00pm | Solo Time & Dinner
- Friday Sept 13th 6:00-8:00pm | Cinema Divina on The Numinous
- Saturday Sept 14th 10:00am-Noon | Exploring Awe, Guided Somatic Savoring, Communal Contemplative Rest & Sharing
- Saturday Sept 14th Noon – 1:30pm | Solo Time & Lunch
- Saturday Sept 14th 1:30-4:30pm | Reflections, Exploring Awe, Guided Somatic Savoring, Communal Contemplative Rest & Sharing
- Saturday Sept 14th 4:30-6:00pm | Solo Time & Dinner
- Saturday Sept 14th 6:00-7:30pm | Communal Contemplative Rest & Reflections
- Sunday Sept 15th 10:00am-Noon | Contemplative Rest & Closing Insights, Wishes & Intentions
M Notes:
About the “numinous” – what some might call the Divine, others might call Creator, Presence, God or Goddess, the Mystery, I like to call the numinous. I first encountered the word, numinous, some years ago in The Idea of the Holy (published in 1923) written by Christian theologian and philosopher, Rudolf Otto (1869-1937) The book is an exploration into religious experience that transcends dogma, morality, and rationality, Otto coined the word numinousfrom the Latin numen (the Divine) and omen (a happening believed to be a sign). He explains the numinous as non-rational, mysterious…the thrill of awe…rapture and exaltation; a state irreducible to any other; a state that cannot be strictly defined; it cannot be taught, one must be guided and led on by consideration and discussion of the matter until they reach the point at which ‘the numinous’ begins to stir, to start into life and into consciousness…evoked, awakened in the mind (p. 7). For me, the idea of “the numinous” is powerfully liberating.
About M Freeman
Media artist, writer, contemplative, spiritual director, and independent scholar, M Freeman works at the intersections of reckoning and resiliency, queerness and film, and contemplative, creative and social art practices. Author of The Illuminated Space: A Personal Theory and Contemplative Practice of Media Art (The 3rd Thing, 2020/winner of the Nautilus Book Award Gold Medal for Creativity & Innovation) and creator of Cinema Divina (short films for contemplative practice), Freeman is the founder of Contemplative Rest and curator of Good Symptom: A Serial Anthology of Time-based Disturbances (The 3rd Thing, 2024). Their text and media arts essays have been published in or at The Fourth Genre, Ninth Letter, TriQuarterly, Blackbird, Rolling Stone, Abbey of the Arts, and Good Symptom. Their films are screened on PBS and in galleries, spirituality centers and festivals worldwide.
