Deep Intimacy Couples Retreat [FULL]
This retreat is fully booked. To inquire about being added to the waiting list, please reach out to the facilitator using the contact information below.
This retreat is for couples who hope to:
Teacher Residencies (Preschool through 5th Grade)
Ten self-guided one-week residencies for teachers of preschool through fifth grade are being sponsored by the Nancy M. and Douglas M. Yeager Family Foundation, in partnership with GilChrist Retreat Center. 2022 is the 18th year that the teacher residencies have been offered.
July Practice: Play at Work
Play touches and stimulates vitality, awakening the whole person—mind and body, intelligence and creativity, spontaneity and intuition. —Viola Spolin
Do you shy away from “play” as something frivolous--not to be part of your work life? In the video below, Bill Vendley, our senior advisor for world religions, reminds us of the importance of play, and this from someone who dedicated his life's work to conflict resolution!
June Practice: Bring Love to What We Do
It’s easy to forget how impactful the daily, ordinary moments of our lives can be. Sensei Koshin Paley Ellison, Zen teacher, psychotherapist, and president of the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care shares what a door person in his building said that moved and reminded him of the impact our most ordinary activities have on others.
StoryCorps Conversations Celebrate Longtime Fetzer Staff
From those who tend Fetzer's physical workplace, library, and mission, we learn of the importance of love, humor, and humility in the work we do together. We found these short clips from some of our longest-serving staff to be delightful and hope you do too! Many thanks to our friends at StoryCorps for this special opportunity.
May Practice: Through Dying We Learn to Live
Dying is a universal experience, yet we have such trouble talking about it, allowing for our own and others’ grief, and learning from this profound and mysterious passage. In the video below, Carla Fernandez, co-founder of The Dinner Party considers what we miss when we avoid the topic and the precious lessons it offers us.
April Practice: Community as a Verb
This month, we look to Scherto Gill, a research fellow at the Guerrand-Hermès Foundation for Peace to help us reframe our cultural assumption of community, moving it from something outside ourselves to an active process we live into. Watch Scherto in the video below!
Join us as we experiment with the practice of “we-ness” that Scherto speaks of. How might you live as if community is an action, a verb? Share your observations and experiences below.
StoryCorps Conversations Celebrate Longtime Fetzer Staff
In partnership with our friends at StoryCorps, we're sharing highlights from a series of interviews featuring our longest-serving Fetzer staff members! Get to know our wonderful colleagues Dena O'Flynn, Fred Colbert, Rob Lehman, Bruce Carlson, Tim Jones, and Kathy Cavanaugh by listening in on these charming conversations.
Co-creating Our Story: A Hybrid Participatory Case Approach to Evaluating and Accelerating Organizational Change
At Fetzer, our "Community of Freedom" is at the heart of all that we do. For three hours each week, our full staff stops work and either together or individually cultivates their spiritual path—however they define it. We explore personal spiritual interests, share new ideas and work, build connections with teammates and partners, and learn about topics from emotional intelligence and mindfulness to spiritual parenting. We believe that providing the space to develop such a community will help us become a more effective organization by creating a culture of love and authenticity.
Creating Virtual Sacred Space
With much of our lives taking place online, the Fetzer Institute is exploring ways to foster meaningful connection and deep inner work in virtual and hybrid spaces. Our inquiry is driven by an interest in the field of virtual spirituality—how do we and others create a sense of energy, connection, and spirit to do soul-level work amid our many screens and devices? While we continue to explore and nurture what is emerging, we offer this guide for facilitators and conveners of online gatherings.