Golden Gate Sufi Circle

The Retreat Center is currently hosting the space for The Golden Gate Sufi Circle's 7th annual 10-day sesshin. Participants come together to engage in Silent Meditation alternating with Zikr and Dances of Universal Peace, exploring this new way to integrate active practice with meditation. The retreats have been a deep and joyful success, often with nearly 100 participants. This potent practice combines the power and resonance of the Zikr Circle/Dance Circle with the profound calm and abiding insight of the meditative state. The goal is that this integrative approach will move us toward a grounded balance of serenity, insight and awareness. The teachings and transmission of Hazrat Inayat Khan and Murshid Samuel are woven into the retreat. Leaders are Pir Shabda Kahn, Murshid Wali Ali, MurshidaTaj Inayat, Sheikh Rahmat Moore and Gayan Long. In the spring the Retreat Center will be hosting the Federation of the Sufi Message (all the orders of Hazrat Inayat Khan) from April 28 to May 2. See www.suficircle.org.

Thank You to our December Retreat Center clients!

Jean Houston Mystery School
Veriditas

We host retreats, workshops and client events on an ongoing basis throughout the year at the Retreat Center. Please click here to see our detailed events schedule.

The Retreat Center staff decided that two new storage units were top projects that would help them operate more efficiently. One storage unit, attached to the West Room, will be used for storing the chairs that are not in use. Managing the movement and storage of these chairs has been a time-consuming and labor-intensive job since these deluxe Herman Miller chairs are not stack-able. They were a generous donation several years ago, and are extremely comfortable chairs for our retreat groups to use. The second storage unit has also been completed and is located across from the Gordon Garden near the Community Building. This unit will be used for IONS books, publications, gift store inventory and facilities storage. The buildings were constructed using steel frame panels from Codding Steel Frame Solutions in Rohnert Park; follow this link to learn about steel as a green building product. The erection and construction has been done by Tomas Dupal Construction. These sheds were made possible by a donation from Daphne Crocker-White.

Monthly Dinner Series, from 5:30-7:00 pm on campus here in Petaluma for dinner, with guest speakers.

Thursday, January 21: Dinner Salon featuring Kim Rosen and Anodea Judith

Pre-registration Required
Early Registration
    Program and Dinner: $30
    Program, Dinner & Wine: $35
After 48 hours prior to the events
    Program and Dinner: $35
    Program, Dinner & Wine: $40
Register now

Kim Rosen, MFA, author of Saved by a Poem: The Transformative Power of Words (Hay House, 2009), has touched listeners around the world with the spoken word’s power to awaken, inspire and heal. She is the co-creator of four CDs of spoken poetry and music and has delivered poetry in a wide spectrum of venues from the crypt of Chartres Cathedral to the New Orleans Superdome. Combining her devotion to poetry with her background as a spiritual teacher and therapist, Kim has spent 30 years developing workshop environments that invite participants to discover new realms within—creatively, emotionally and spiritually. Kim has taught on the faculty of the Omega Institute, Wisdom University, Kripalu and the International Pathwork Foundation. An award winning poet and writer, her writing has been published in O Magazine, Huffington Post, Central Park, and The Texas Review, among other publications. Kim will be teaching a weekend workshop at IONS January 29-31. (See listing of Transformative Learning Workshops below).

Anodea Judith, PhD will talk about her lifetime of work with the chakra system, its application to psychological development and healing, and its political implications for our time. The Chakra System is an ancient map for both our personal development and our collective evolution. As a template for transformation, it describes the portals between the inner and outer worlds, the meeting points of matter and spirit, and the architecture of the human soul. Anodea is the author of several best-selling books on the chakras, including the classic Wheels of Life and the award-winning DVD, The Illuminated Chakras. She is the founder of Sacred Centers and a world renowned lecturer and workshop leader. Anodea will be teaching a 7-day workshop at IONS March 29–April 4. For more info go to www.SacredCenters.com.

Our February Dinner Salon will be a private event for members of Petaluma’s Tara Firma Farms. The guest speaker for this event will be Joe Salatin. Tara Firma Farms offers healthy chemical-free, all-natural produce and meats from grass-fed, pasture-raised and humanely-treated pigs, cows, and chickens. Tara Firma Farms donates 10% of its income from IONS members back to IONS. Check them out at www.tarafirmafarms.com. We plan to collaborate with them on future events and that we’ll keep readers informed through the newsletter.

Transformative Learning Workshops

January 29-31 – Speaking the Soul: The Transformative Power of Words with Kim Rosen
February 5-7 – Women in Transition: Climbing into Your Authentic Self with Suze Allen and Jnana Gowan

March 5-7 – Live from Your Strengths: A Journey Toward Increased Engagement and Meaning in Life Lauren Vanett, MA
March 19-21 – Green in Spirit: Healing through Permaculture and Biosynamic Gardening with Brenda Sanders
April 16-18 – Cells and the Sacred: Discovering the Cell as Messenger for the Marriage of Science and Spirituality with Sondra Barrett, PhD
April 16-18 – From Science to God: A Journey into the Mystery of Consciousness with Peter Russell, MA
April 23-25 – Learning Telekinesis—Your Gateway to Mind Over Matter and
April 26 – Developing Subtle Energy Awareness and Telekinesis: One-day Intensive
both with Natalia Shareyko, MD, PhD, of the Institute for Biosensory Psychology in Saint Petersberg, Russia

May 21-23 – The Six Life-paths of the Human Soul and the Imprints of Conception with Ralph Metzner, part of the six-part Alchemical Divination Series
June 25-27 – Primordial Qigong: A Gem from the Treasure Chest of Taoist Mystical Qigong with Donald and Cheryl Lynne Rubbo

Translucent Beings
Paintings by Toni Littlejohn

Exhibition: January 2-March 31, 2010
Opening Reception: Saturday, February 6th, 3-5 PM
Music by composer, Joyce Kouffman, of Point Reyes Music Retreats
Poetry readings by Nancy Bertelesen, Robin Leslie Jacobson and Devi Weisenberg

"Influenced by the Diamond Approach of integrating spiritual development with western psychology, my artwork is an experience in the practice of ego surrendering itself to the realm of being and then returning to self. The paintings in this exhibition reflect the impact of my recent trip to the Masai Mara Reserve in Kenya. Masai warriors dance, chant their way around the fire. Their tall sinewy bodies transpose into streams of color and light, forms dissolving into wholeness, humans becoming luminosity." —Toni Littlejohn

Toni Littlejohn has exhibited her work widely in the Bay Area. She is a founding member of Gallery Route One and has been leading artist workshops "Wild Carrots" since 1992.

More about the artists who will perform at the February 6 Opening Reception:

Poets

Devi Weisenberg lives in Inverness and her love affair with West Marin sizzles so hot that she's forced to live near water for safety. She considers herself a part of the oral tradition, gleefully clacking the bones of spoken words together. She self published Poems from around the Bend and her work has appeared in the West Marin Review and Joy No Matter What.

Robin Leslie Jacobson, whose poetry and prose have been published widely in literary journals and anthologies, is a two-time winner of Marin Arts Council individual artist grants and has been a resident at the Headlands Center for the Arts. Formerly a teacher for California Poets in the Schools and for Poets & Writers, she has collaborated with visual artists Toni Littlejohn and Judith Selby Lang in Gallery Route One's Artists in the Schools Program. At UC Berkeley, Robin is currently learning to teach English as a Second Language.

Nancy Bertelsen, a West Marin poet and former psychotherapist, combines narrative and lyrical modes in exploring the natural world, the human condition, and their points of intersection. Her work has been published in the West Marin Review.

Musician

Joyce Kouffman is a Bay Area composer who has spent decades studying and living with traditional rhythms of West Africa, including intensive study with drum masters of the National Ballet of Senegal. Having searched for the roots of American jazz in Africa, she is also a jazz drummer, improvisational cellist, and classical guitarist. Joyce teaches all ages and levels in the Bay Area and offers Point Reyes Music Retreats in classical and jazz. More info: www.JoyceJazz.com

You can enhance and support the Retreat Center by gifting us with some of our specific needs around the campus by visiting our Amazon.com "wish" list (click here). In small but significant ways, your help supports the Retreat Center, guests in their personal transformative journeys on the campus, and some of the animals that inhabit the land. We welcome your gift and invite you to make other suggestions.

Focus Project: Outdoor Furniture

Our focus project this month is to fund furniture and awnings for our chalets. There are fabulous views of the Petaluma hills from these porches. They call for furniture and awnings to give our guests comfortable spaces to hang out and relax. Click on the link to take you to the furniture and awnings we need. If you would like to contribute, we would be grateful, and not only will we honor your contribution in the newsletter, but we will honor you on a framed list in the chalets.

Thank You
Catherine Kyle of Groveland, CA
for a Star Resin Training Multipurpose Table

Click here to see pictures of donated items and their placements around campus.

Donate now.

2009 IONS Holiday Open House

Neither rain, nor fog, nor a PG&E power outage could dampen the joyous spirits of over 200 of us who ventured out to enjoy an afternoon of holiday festivities including eating, drinking, dancing, caroling, and communing at our 2009 Holiday Open House. We send out a special thank you to all our musician friends; to Aldo Garibaldi on the piano and classical guitarist Giovanni Mandala for leading our Christmas Carol sing-a-long and to the Love Choir whose delightful harmonic gifts set the energetic tone for the day. Kudos to our chefs for their tasty delicacies paired with delicate wines and homemade desserts which were savored by all. One very lucky person won a free pass to our upcoming Chabot Space Center event in February and many others had the chance to take a tour of our infamous "Cube," or "Box" as our Senior Scientist Dr. Dean Radin prefers to call it, in the research lab.

We wish to make this magical moment in IONS history an annual event, and hope that next year you too will be able to join in the festivities!