Contemplation and Community
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Start
26/10/2024
All-day Event -
End
01/11/2024
All-day Event -
Iona
The Abbey, Isle Of Iona, Argyll, Scotland
Contemplation and Community: inner stillness and outer action
26th October – 1st November 2024.
We invite you to join us for this special week of contemplation in community. This week is led by Stephen Wright a member of the Iona Community. It is intended for those who are comfortable with deep spiritual inquiry and ready to go deeper along that particular Way known as contemplation. Stephen will offer an insight into the Heartfulness nature of contemplation, how to be open to it, and how to live the contemplative Way in all the gifts and challenges of our everyday lives.
Our time here will centre around an intensive engagement with contemplative practices. There will be daily periods of group work, reflection and conversation, combined with long periods of solitude, silence and stillness. Both will aid the inner prayerful and reflective journey that supports our longing for relationship in the One in whom ‘we live and move and have our being’.
We will be further nurtured by the sacred presence of Iona Abbey and its community, the elemental beauty of this special island and its long history of attentiveness to the sacred.
There will also be moments of grounding our insights by helping with the everyday tasks of living in community. The deep inner life does not have to be separate from the outer.
Shared expectations and practicalities
Most meals and interim activities will be taken in silence, but there will be opportunities, for those who wish, to enjoy social time and conversation.
Accommodation will be offered as single occupancy rooms at Iona Abbey. Private time is an essential component of this programme. However, we can offer room sharing if you wish to bring a close friend or partner also wishing to join the course.
Facilitator
Led by Stephen Wright, this programme will draw upon the collaborative work of the Sacred Space Foundation and the Diocese of Carlisle in the St. Kentigern School and Community for Contemplatives. Stephen is a Member of the Iona Community, a director of the Sacred Space Foundation, an ordained Interfaith minister and spiritual director.
You can listen to Stephen’s Heartfulness webinar, given to the Iona Community in May 2022, here:
Costs
6 Nights: £762 per adult, £381 for reduced rate – see our programme page for more information.