With Labor Day weekend just days away, schools soon in session, and the calendar flipping to September, summer may be coming to a close, but Rolling Ridge is open and looking forward to a full fall schedule. With online and onsite opportunities on the calendar, the Ridge seeks to care for your spiritual needs amid the growing uncertainties of the pandemic.
ONLINE, our Divine Friendships series on the Christian contemplative classics continues on Monday, September 13th as we look at the Cloud of Unknowing, an anonymous work of Christian mysticism from the latter half of the 1300s. The book advises that oneness with God cannot be obtained by knowledge and intellect, but by meeting God in the realm of “unknowing”, a simple but intense contemplation in a “cloud of forgetting” and a “dart of longing love” from the heart for God. Intrigued? We invite you to step into the Unknowing.
Also ONLINE, our Voices and Stories series continues on Wednesday, September 15th as we kick-off National Hispanic Heritage Month and look at the history of this celebration which began as a week in 1966 and expanded to a month in 1988. We will describe the difference between “Hispanic” and “Latinx”, and will be joined by Walter Mena, Director of the Merrimack Valley Project, who will share about his own immigration story from El Salvador, along with the diversity and immigration issues of the Latinx community in the Merrimack Valley today.
ONSITE, Rolling Ridge is offering three in-person Monday day retreats this month to help us find new spiritual grounding as we make sense of the past year. Consider adding an overnight package to make it a personal retreat at the Ridge.
We begin our September “Day Together” series on Monday, September 8th, Singing and Dancing the Holy, with Stephanie Rutt as we step light to journey deep and embody the sacred mantra practices from across faith traditions. Using simple circle movements, we’ll join together, hand in hand, breath by breath, footstep by footstep to journey to the center of the holy.
On Monday, September 13th, we seek to mindfully emerge from a year of change by Understanding Impermanence with Marie Radzinsky. Our emotions have been on a roller coaster over the past year and a half. As we face anger, grief and fear, our thoughts are still trying to catch up. Using experiential participation and teachings, we will look through the lens of Mindfulness at Relationships we have either lost or have become difficult, through the Landscape of our Earth to see changes and movement always taking place, and within our bodies to witness the change also happening each moment of our life.
Finally, on Monday, September 20th, we invite you to Tune Up Your Spirit with Janet Kessenich by harmonizing your life to be in sync and flow. Through sound healing, self-exploration, group discussion, and musical experiences, you will deepen your connection with your soul and be inspired to live a more insightful, meaningful, and satisfying life, centered in your heart and reflecting your highest meaning and purpose in an emerging post-pandemic world.
With all that we’ve been through, and all that we continue to go through, our spirits are taking a beating. Take some time this month to recharge, to reset, to renew.
And don’t forget, our Season of Creation Sunday Vespers begin THIS SUNDAY, September 5th.
More ONLINE and a few ONSITE opportunities are coming in October. With a new Joan Chittister book study, a dream workshop series, a women’s rites of passage program, a generous listening series, and our autumn contemplative rhythms offerings, the Ridge is creating safe and sacred spaces to prepare our souls for whatever the delta variant may bring this next season. We are in this together.
Through these uncertain times, we continue to be thankful for your prayers and support. Please consider a September gift to offset our monthly expenses at the Ridge as the growing fears of the pandemic again stretch our financial sustainability. We appreciate your donation. Every little bit helps. Thank you.
