Retreats, Rituals and Practices
with Anne Overzee
Photograph by Andrew Fusek-Peters
“Essentially we are all beings of light and on occasion we can glimpse each other’s radiant nature…”
Advent: an initiatory journey
Four online evenings leading up to Christmas
November 28; December 5,12 and 19
6.30 – 7.45 U.K.; 7.30 – 8.45 CET
‘…and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.’ ( T.S.Elliot, Four Quartets)
Advent is a liminal time. We can pass through many different experiences, including longing, weariness and anticipatory joy. We cannot know what may emerge in us as we connect on different levels with the ancient story of Jesus’ birth during this particular advent; but we can surrender to the mystery, and wait and see.
It is possible that the early Church used this period as a preparation for Baptism, like Easter. So the initiatory aspect of advent (from adventus, the coming) is a traditional one.
In these four evenings we will have the opportunity to explore what advent means or could mean to us, through an unfolding sequence of meditations, readings and listening circles as we deepen into our personal and shared journeying.
Longing and Belonging
23-27 May 2024
Location: Santuario di Graglia Via Campiglie 1, Graglia 13895 (BI), Italy
This is a silent retreat with a daily contemplative structure which includes silent sitting and walking meditation, sharing and ritual. The retreat is held in an ancient Christian Abbey which has exceptionally beautiful natural surroundings to support our practice.
Many of us fear what at some level in our being we really long for. Longing is such an evocative word: it suggests we stretch out internally towards something or someone, - sometimes felt to be unavailable.
This is the territory of the heart; and the paths of our hearts are often winding, complicated and broken. However if we are committed to a practice of deepening our inner life through relationship and in our daily lives, it is important to meet ourselves in our longings. The felt energy of this is potent, transformative.
Being with our longing can free us to be with some of our experiences with more awareness and less avoidance. We can allow more of our heart’s deep wisdom energies to guide our lives. Our longing is like the sap of our being, it can nourish us, and in recognizing its essence we can enter the mystery of our belonging.
This interspiritual retreat provides an opportunity for personal experiential enquiry in relation to this theme in the context of a co-created supportive holding field, and in the wider context of taking time out of our daily commitments to simply rest and ‘be’.
Participants need to be at a time of enough balance in their lives to be comfortable with as well as accustomed to silent retreats and sharing in groups.
Each participant must commit to attending the whole retreat and to the Code of Conduct and Ethics for Retreat Participants.
Booking: Please visit Associazione Progetto PienEssere APS
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“Anelito e appartenenza”
un ritiro interspirituale con Anne Overzee
dal 23 al 27 maggio 2024
presso Il Santuario di Graglia , Via Campiglie 1, Graglia 13895 (BI), Italia
Questo è un ritiro in silenzio con una struttura contemplativa quotidiana che include la meditazione seduta e camminata, la condivisione e il rituale. Il ritiro si tiene in un’antica abbazia cristiana circondata da un ambiente naturale molto bello che possa sostenere la nostra pratica.
Molti di noi temono ciò che a un certo livello del nostro essere desideriamo, aneliamo davvero. Anelito è una parola così evocativa: suggerisce che ci allunghiamo internamente verso qualcosa o qualcuno, che a volte sentiamo non disponibile.
Questo è il territorio del cuore; e i sentieri del nostro cuore sono spesso tortuosi, complicati e spezzati. Tuttavia, se ci impegniamo in una pratica di approfondimento della nostra vita interiore attraverso le relazioni e nella vita quotidiana, è importante incontrare noi stessi nei nostri aneliti. L’energia percepita è potente, trasformativa.
Stare con il nostro anelito può permetterci di affrontare alcune delle nostre esperienze con più consapevolezza e meno evitamento. Possiamo permettere alle energie di saggezza profonda del nostro cuore di guidare la nostra vita. Il nostro anelito è come la linfa del nostro essere, può nutrirci e riconoscendo la sua essenza possiamo entrare nel mistero della nostra appartenenza.
Il ritiro interspirituale “Anelito e appartenenza” offre un’opportunità per una ricerca personale esperienziale riguardo questo tema. Ciò accade nel contesto di un campo di sostegno co-creato e nel contesto più ampio del tempo libero dai nostri impegni quotidiani nel quale possiamo semplicemente riposare ed “essere”.
I partecipanti devono trovarsi in un momento di sufficiente equilibrio nella loro vita per sentirsi a proprio agio e abituati ai ritiri silenziosi e alla condivisione in gruppo. Ogni partecipante deve impegnarsi a partecipare all’intero ritiro e al Codice di condotta ed etica per i partecipanti al ri+ro.
Coming Home
12-15 September 2024
Location: Abbazia di Maguzzano, Via Maguzzano, 4 25017 Lonato (BS) – Italy
This is a silent retreat with a daily contemplative structure which includes silent sitting and walking meditation, sharing and ritual. The retreat is held in a Christian monastery on Lake Garda. We are very fortunate to be practising in a place that has a long-standing spiritual community that is familiar with silence.
Most of us have times in our lives when we feel displaced, or lost. We have days when we feel very on our own. And our inner journeying can have that same flavour, especially if we are experiencing loss, uncertainty or fear.
Coming to know these ‘refugee’ places in ourselves can be an important part of our spiritual journey, since the experience portents an opening into a sense of possibility, of arriving ‘home’ to ourselves and connecting; letting fear and all that binds us melt away.
At death there is often, in Tibetan Buddhism, a reference to a point in the subtle dissolution process that is likened to a child re-uniting with its mother. The image refers to the way in which our awareness returns to its essential nature.
The beauty is that this ‘coming home’ is, like dying itself, an ongoing process that doesn’t just belong to the end of our lives: it is central to our embodied path of coming home to ourselves and awakening together…
Participants need to be at a time of enough balance in their lives to be comfortable with as well as accustomed to silent retreats and sharing in groups.
Each participant must commit to attending the whole retreat and to the Code of Conduct and Ethics for Retreat Participants.
Some Past Retreats
Earth: Mindfulness and the seduction of Pride (Italy, 2015)
Water: Mindfulness and the seduction of Anger ( Italy, 2015)
Fire: Mindfulness and the seduction of Desire ( Italy, 2015)
Air: Mindfulness and the seduction of Jealousy ( Italy, 2016)
Space: Mindfulness and the seduction of Ignorance ( Italy, 2016)
Mindfulness and the seduction of our Emotional Energies (Italy, 2017)
Waves of Blessing (Italy, 2022)
Entering the Mystery (Italy, 2023)
Wonder; opening the eyes of the heart ( italy, 2023)
Letting go in Love ( Italy, 2023)
Longing and Belonging ( Italy, 2024)