 heartwisdom offerings will: Support you in learning how to authentically express the true nature of your being.
Teach you ways of living with compassion in relationship to all beings.
Guide you in honoring and transforming the relationships of your life
with the mindfulness of reverence, the warmth of love, and the intentionality of connection.
Offerings listed below are available to individuals, groups, organizations and churches. These may be brought to your organization or choice of site upon request. Program offerings may also be custom-designed to meet the needs of your particular group or organization.
Coming to Our Senses: Inner & Outer Ways of Knowing Body, Soul & Spirit Awaken to your senses as nourishment for the content of your thoughts, stimulation for the sensations of your feelings and supportive ground for the power of your actions. Together we will come to recognize our twelve senses as “well-springs” serving human needs. Sense experience leads inwardly toward self and outwardly toward others. Being present to our senses invites the intentionality of attentiveness and the deepening of awareness that can transform how we relate to one another and contribute to the world. This is a series to be held over the following days and times: Dates & Time: 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on third Saturday of the month February 18 Body Awareness through the Physical Senses March 17 Meeting the World through the Senses of the Soul April 21 Inner Knowing through the Spiritual Senses May 19 Consciousness & the Wisdom of the Senses Opening to Meditation: Preparations & Practices
Meditation invites a dwelling in silence and then, from this silent part of ourselves to begin the exploration and experience of being present to what is alive there. In this introductory class, we will explore preparations for meditation that focus on entering the silent self, caring for our our inner well-being, and developing qualities of humility and reverence. Following the active engagement with preparatory activities, we will move into the actual practice of meditation from the perspectives of both open and focused attention. Each evening will include time for engaged preparations and time for silent practice. This four week class is based on the Arthur Zajonc book, "Meditation as Contemplative Inquiry: When Knowing Becomes Love." You do not need the book to participate in the class, however, if you choose to deepen your exploration, this text will be a wonderful companion to your journey with meditation and the presence of "being with." Heart-Centered Communication:
bringing body, soul & spirit to our moments of meeting
Learn how to communicate from your heart where intentions for meeting what is present both within you and iwhin the other will lead to clarity, warmth, understanding and the authenticity of mutuality in your connection.
Heart-centered communication will teach you how to:
Each session includes conceptual tools and experiential learning processes to transform your habitual reactions into conscious and compassionate responses. The class may be offered in weekend or sequentially scheduled sessions. To learn more, go to Heart-Centered Communication. See calendar for current schedule of classes. Reclaiming Life in the Face of Illness
This eight-week transformative series is for people living with chronic illness and/or facing the challenges of life-threatening diseases. Together, we will explore what it takes to live with both the joys and sorrows of changing health conditions and discover spiritual and emotional growth in the midst of difficulties and limitations. Practical tools, caring support and guidance for meting the darkness of fear and the light of hope will be shared. Join us if you are looking for spiritiual renewal, sharing and support for your journey and a reclaiming of the creative energies of life, along with gifts of inner peace.
Stress as a Messenger: Practices for Welcoming Change
This series will offer ways of meeting stress creatively and transforming patterns of flight (reactive defenses), flight (running and withdrawing) and denial (pretending it's not really there.) You will come to recognize your habitual patterns and consciously change their negative effects on the body, mind and soul. Com and learn how to meet life authentically, with enthusiasm, willingness, creativity and presence. Poetry to Heal the Soul “when the inner and outer are wedded, revelation occurs" - Hildegard of Bingen Poetry, like prayer, is a language of the soul. When we listen to it, it gives expression to our most intimate experiences, capturing a single moment with imagery, emotion and sensual remembering of what the poet gives voice to and how it reflects and resonates within us, as echoes of our own experiences.  read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of one's life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Poetic Encounter is a monthly gathering where a small number of poems are savored and shared in a circle. We will sit with each poem as a meditation in silence. In that silence, we meet and greet the poem through a process of contemplation and response. We greet the poem with the spoken word, listening aloud and expressing its heart through the sounds of our own voices. Our responses to the poem will include awareness and engagement with the aliveness of sensations moving in our body, soul and spirit. Exercises may include time together and time apart to greet the revelations of inner and outer encounters. Questions to explore the poem as an inquiry into our own experience may be offered to stimulate dialogue, journaling and/or other embodied, creative responses. After some spaciousness for personal engagement with the words of the poet and presence to the emergence of our inner responses, we come together again to share what we have gleaned with one another. We feast on the delightful nourishment of poet and of one another as sacred companions sharing the journey of our souls. We recognize how we are touched, tendered and transfigured by the encounter.
Dreamwork for Body, Soul & Spirit
The Dream Keeper
by Langston Hughes
Bring me all of your dreams, you dreamers.
Bring me all of your heart melodies That I may wrap them in a blue cloud-cloth Away from the too-rough fingers of the world. Dreams provide each of us with daily guidance, nourishment for our souls and wisdom for life. When we take time to recall our dreams, we invite a vulnerability and openness into our lives. We play with creative ways of engaging with the work of more fully coming to know and love ourselves as we learn to deepen our awareness of the archetypal revelations of our souls and recognize the presence of spiritual guidance for our paths.
A dreamwork session includes an introduction to a particular approach to dreams (this varies with each session), followed by sharing and exploration of individual or group participants' dreams.
Dreamwork may be scheduled on an individual basis or shared together in one of the group sessions regularly scheduled. New group sessions may be organized upon request for groups with a minimum of five to seven participants.
Anam Cara Circle: A Gathering of Presence & Soul Friendship (also known as Group Spiritual Direction)
 a visible sign of invisible grace.
It is the sweet grace that liberates us to approach,
recognize, and inhabit this adventure.
The anam cara (soul friend) is a person
to whom you can reveal the hidden intimacies of your life."
- John O'Donohue, author of Anam Cara
"Anam Cara" is a Celtic word meaning, "soul friend." We are seekers of growth and meaning who gather together and create a circle of trust and a living energy of loving presence for one another. Each session includes a brief check-in with each other, an inspirational focus (i.e. poem, image, song, gesture, etc.) to relate to from our individual life experience, followed by spaciousness for silent reflectrion and optional journaling, leading to group presence as each individual shares responses to the reflection, and ends with a period of group synthesis. The evening closes with warmth of gratitude, sharing of intentions, and expression of blessings. See Calendar for current schedule of Group Spiritual Direction in Winona, Minnesota.
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