DATES & DETAILS

Retreat 1: Saturday, October 26th, 2024, 2:00-4:00 pm MT
St. Hildegard’s ‘Viriditas’ meets Thomas Berry’s ‘Spirituality of Earth’

A focus on Hildegard’s concept of Viriditas, the greening power of God, merging with reflections on Thomas’ essay The Spirituality of Earth – Earth’s processes expressing an abiding numinous presence, an intrinsic spiritual quality from the beginning.

“The soul is a breath of living spirit, that with excellent sensitivity, permeates the entire body to give it life. Just so, the breath of the air makes the earth fruitful. Thus, the air is the soul of the earth, moistening it, greening it.” —  Hildegard of Bingen

“We should be listening to the stars in the heavens and the sun and the moon, to the mountains and the plains, to the forests and rivers and seas that surround us, to the meadows and the flowering grasses, to the songbirds and the insects and to their music especially in the evening and the early hours of the night. We need to experience, to feel, and to see these myriad creatures all caught up in the celebration of life.”  —  Thomas Berry

Retreat 2: Sunday, April 27th, 2025, 2:00-4:00 pm MT (Part 1 – Teilhard’s Mass on the World)

Retreat 3: Saturday, May 10th, 2025, 2:00-4:00 pm MT (Part 2 – Thomas’s Cosmic Liturgy and Celebration)
Teilhard de Chardin’s ‘Mass on the World’ meets Thomas Berry’s ‘Cosmic Liturgy and Celebration’

The Mass on the World is one of Teilhard de Chardin’s most mystical and poetic writings. His grand vision was the Eucharist and the Sacred Heart of Christ as the radiating center of the universe. For Teilhard, we live in the bosom of a great cosmic Eucharist.

“Since once again, Lord, I have neither bread, nor wine, nor altar, I will raise myself beyond these symbols, up to the pure majesty of the real itself; I, your priest, will make the whole earth my altar and on it will offer you all the labors and sufferings of the world.” —  Teilhard de Chardin

Thomas’ vision is the entire universe as the primordial sacred community.  He observed that we’ve developed celebrations for seasonal events (e.g., solstices and harvest) and liturgies, ceremonies, and traditions marking religious stories of faith (e.g., Christmas, Ramadan, Passover, Easter).  But we’ve not yet begun to acknowledge and celebrate the moments of grace in our grand cosmic liturgy. For example, how might we celebrate the 1st generation star whose death as a supernova gave rise to the birth of our Sun, to Earth, life, the first flowers, consciousness, and so forth?

“The universe itself is the primordial sacred community. There’s a grand liturgy that is performed by the universe, if we look on it with the eyes and the awareness of the sacred.” — Thomas Berry

Retreat 4: Saturday, June 14th, 2025, 2:00-4:00 pm MT
Thomas Berry’s on ‘Guidance and the Self-Healing of Earth,’ meets Janine Benyus on ‘Biomimicry’

Thomas points to humanity as being ‘lost’ and needing guidance. ‘We need to ask for guidance,’ he states, ‘hidden within our genetic coding … ask for it from the Earth community … ask for it from the universe.’  We turn our attention to guidance from the Earth community as expressed within Thomas’ essay, Earth as Self-Healing.

“The healing of the Earth Community has two basic dimensions that are intertwined. There is the need for the healing of the Earth as a whole. And there is the need for the healing of the human, considered as a particular species.  In both related endeavors, the context for the healing is the universe as a whole.  The powers of healing, the powers of regeneration, the powers of renewal are rooted in the primordial realities of the universe, the Earth, and the human species.” —  Thomas Berry

This is mirrored within the contemporary wisdom of biomimicry as articulated by natural science writer and innovation consultant, Janine Benyus. Biomimicry looks to the authentic spontaneities within the wild for solutions – solutions that emulate nature’s ways.

“Biomimicry is basically taking a design challenge and then finding an ecosystem that’s already solved that challenge, and literally trying to emulate what you learn.” —  Janine Benyus

PRESENTER

Maureen Wild, SC  A teacher by profession, Maureen’s M.Ed. focused on the evolving story of our universe and earth literacy. In 1994 she was a founding member of, and a committed volunteer for, the international network, Sisters of Earth (sisters-of-earth.net), who follow the teachings of Thomas Berry and explore cosmos/earth as manifesting our sacred story with its many implications for living in balance and right relationship. Featured in the book, Green Sisters (Harvard Univ Press, 2007), Maureen served as educator and director for two ecological learning centres (US and Canada). She has led spiritual ecology programs and retreats internationally for 25 years. On the BC coast, she helped the Gabriola Ecumenical Society develop inter-spiritual programing that nurtures spiritual questing. She’s currently on the Board of the Gabriola Memorial Society who advocate for the creation of a natural burial cemetery, and she oversees a community garden where she also gardens with families and seniors.  She serves at local seniors’ monthly lunches hosted by People for a Healthy Community (PHC) as part of their Circle of Care for Seniors; a program she cofounded in 2011 with the aid of a grant from her congregation.

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