"Walking inside yourself." Invitation to a guided Day of Solitude
Winter Solitude Retreat, Feb 20 2021, 10 am - 4 pm (CT), zoom
with Drs. Almut Furchert & Chuck Huff
On a monastery balcony in Italy (photo: A. Furchert 2017)
"What is necessary, after all, is only this:
solitude, vast inner solitude.
To walk inside yourself...
- that is what one must be able to attain."
--- Rainer Maria Rilke
Friends and fellow travelers,
Have you felled that time is passing by faster than ever when many of us still “cloister” at home? Or has the New Year with all its burdening news come faster than your soul can travel?
We do feel like this often. Our little Christmas tree still sits where we put it on Christmas Eve waiting for us to bed it farewell (we probably convert it into an outside tree until snow melts here in MN). And with a toddler running around us and us parents bumping into each other at the coffee station our times of quiet have been shrinking. Still we mainly have developed a sense of gratitude during these odd times of hunkering down. We have taken new interest in the little things and the slower pace and found new ways to give each other and share with each other spaces of solitude.
Our Winter Solitude Retreat is almost already a tradition we offer in the depths of winter to all seekers with the same longing for solitude in a communion of seekers. This year our retreat will take place the first time fully online. That means it is now open also to our fellow travelers far away from where we live. Still we will keep it to a small group setting so we actually can meet each other in person when we create this sacred time of shared solitude with each other.
How it works
In the depth of winter, our winter solitude invites you into a shared time of rest and solitariness - this time via Zoom.
Winter Solitude Retreat, Feb 20 2021, 10 am - 4 pm (CT), zoom
Inspired by Rainer Maria Rilke’s call to walk inside oneself we will read, journal, contemplate, and share some of our insights with each other. This year’s reading will be a brief piece by the Danish writer Søren Kierkegaard on the Deeper Self, providing a guide along the way to self-discovery.
In the afternoon we will lead you into writing part of your life’s story and the insights you have been gathering during the morning hours into a new narrative.
Our winter solitude especially invites those in-midst of life's transitions, at a threshold of life, in times of challenge or change, those who feel they have not fully arrived in the New Year yet or who simply long for some togetherness in the midst of this long year of sheltering in place. As winter is a season of resting and deepening, in which life's forces work in hidden ways, our soul's winter solitude may be preparing us for new awakenings.
The day will be structured by guided practices for personal reflection, sustained by the poetry of writers such as Rilke, Kierkegaard and others to guide you into a time of solitude and reflection of what has been and what is yet to come.
What Our Participants say
"Do a cloister. It will enrich the rest of your days."
-- Ina Christopherson, participant
Join us from home. No travel necessary…
Our winter retreat 2021 takes place right where you are. We will create a virtual gathering space to share sacred time with each other. This will also allow fellow travelers of cloisterseminars from further away to attend this time.
Suggested Offering is 35-100 $ per person and will be collected short before the retreat. As always thank you to all who give more to make this possible. Bless you for your generosity.
As space is limited for this live retreat please reserve your place as soon as you can but best before Feb 1.
We are looking forward having you with us!
Join us now
Presenters
Dr. Almut Furchert holds graduate degrees in philosophy of religion and psychology and has worked as an independent scholar, counselor and retreat leader since many years. She has published on existential writers like Søren Kierkegaard and wisdom teachers like Hildegard of Bingen. Her husband Chuck Huff, PhD. is Professor of Psychology at St. Olaf College and a practicing Benedictine Oblate at St. Johns Abbey. Both share their passion for monastic traditions and spiritual practices as well as for European thought and wisdom traditions. Together they "cloister" with their little daughter in a small college town in MN.