A self paced Online Journey.
Passion Week Consolations 2023
Daily Online Meditations
with JS Bach
to deepen and uplift your spirit.
Dear One,
Our Passion Week Consolations, born at the onset of the pandemic four years ago invite you to a sacred time to tend to your sorrows and to be consoled by the Divine power of Bach’s Passion. Each day, you will receive a brief meditation on an Aria, recitative or chorus, a link to listen and meditate on the piece yourself, as well as some tender guidance to visit your places of sorrow without getting lost in them.
As always we do write these consolations while walking right alongside you, this time from Berlin, Germany, where we currently cloister with our little one at the city cloister.
JS Bach’s musical Passion has the potential to comfort the sufferer, and to strengthen our self healing potential: It is not just a musical masterpiece. It also holds the potential to console us in times of trouble. Thus, our Consolations will not be a music lesson, but rather a way to face your own passion journey with all your senses, facilitated by lyrics and music which transcend place and time.
For this we invite you to walk with us – at your own pace – from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday, through the valley of your tears or loneliness or despair or sorrows, towards new life and the blossoming of Spring.
You can follow our Passion Consolations every day or reserve a day or two during Passion Week to contemplate them in a self-guided retreat.
We are looking forward to welcoming you on this journey,
Almut with Chuck and little one
“The wound is where the light enters.”
How it works
To walk with us all you need to do is to subscribe to our daily email consolations. Each day, you will receive a brief meditation on an Aria, recitative or chorus in the Passion, a link, to listen and meditate on the piece yourself, as well as some tender guidance to visit your places of sorrow without getting lost in them. You will also have access to all previous consolations.
And as it is unique to our contemplative journeys we are journeying right beside you in spirit, writing for you while walking together through this sacred time.
It also allows you to follow our Consolation on your own pace and time. Thus coming late to the journey will still allow you to journey :-)
Some reserve a half hour every morning, noon or evening to read and listen, some start as they would for Triduum, some save some time on Good Friday or Holy Saturday to create their own meditative retreat using our Consolations. How ever you do, you can walk in and out of this sacred movement as it works with your schedule and spiritual journey.
How to Subscribe
These Passion Contemplations are given from our hearts to yours for all who need it in troubled times. As always
we ask for your offering on a sliding scale between 25-90$
to help us pay for our costs for facilitating this weeklong journey. If you have participated before you already know what to expect and your heart’s value. If you are not sure, give what feels right to your heart right now. As always, all who give more will help us sustain our Cloister Seminars program and sliding scale offerings.
After you subscribe you will receive an automated confirmation email. So do check your email :-) If you have not gotten any confirmation email please check your spam folder or contact us directly.
*If you would like to send a check instead or request a full stipend please contact us: click here. Thank you.
Praise for Passion Week Consolations
“I have been taking this journey with you and have loved it all. But today was even more meaningful. The practice of listening to a piece I thought I knew so well broke open my heart even more, and I thought it was pretty open. Thank you. Especially love this: "Loss and new beginnings are of the same journey. We are on our pilgrimage towards Easter. Through the tomb," as I sit and listen to people all week who are struggling with this Holy Week and their observance of it. Yours is an entering into, which is the best way altogether.”
—— Mary Taylor, spiritual director and participants of PWC 2020
Presenters
Almut Furchert, PhD, is a German-American philosopher of religion, existential counselor, teacher, retreat leader and mother of a toddler. She is also the woman behind cloisterseminars where she shares her passion for wisdom teachings. Almut has taught and published in the intersection of psychology, philosophy and spirituality on both continents. She is also an amateur musician, and has sung for many years in the Munich Bach Choir.
Almut will lead you into a depth experiences of your personal passion week in your own pace and time, inspired by Bach’s lyrics and music, helping you to find consolation, hope and new beginnings.
Almut is supported by her husband Chuck Huff, PhD, who will help with translations, content advice and sitting their toddler…
Like to listen into Bach’s Passion or read a Consolation? Visit our Passion Week Consolation Archive.
“Time’s violence rends the soul; by the rent eternity enters.”