25 Days of GilChrist

For 25 years, GilChrist Retreat Center has served an extended community of humans and other living beings with space for rest, regeneration, and healing. As we prepare to observe the 25th anniversary of the dedication of GilChrist on October 15, our nation is deeply divided politically, a novel virus has dramatically reshaped daily life around the world, the struggle for racial justice continues with urgency, and our wounded planet is crying out.  

A celebration of GilChrist’s legacy in this particular moment would not be complete without focused attention to the complex layers of grief and suffering that threaten to smother our very life breath. At the same time, we believe our essential work of creating space at GilChrist for contemplation in community has helped prepare us for this moment and is more necessary now than ever. 

As part of the Fetzer Institute, GilChrist collaborates in transitioning our human consciousness, our daily practices, and our social systems “from an ego-centered way of being grounded in separation and fear to an all-centered way of being grounded in wholeness and love.” In support of this transitional work for this unique time, our anniversary celebration will focus on the theme of “Healing Ourselves, Our Society, and the Natural World.”  

Spread across 25 days beginning October 1, we will support a number of entry points that invite our entire extended community into remembrance of past healing, gratitude for aliveness in the present, and hopeful imagination for future flourishing. Ways to participate include: 

• Signing up to walk the labyrinth
• Joining daily silent meditations or beginning a 12-week mindfulness experience by Zoom
• Offering a personal ritual or practice of healing to commit to during the 25 days
• Submitting a request for healing that will be held by the community
• Volunteering to work on the GilChrist grounds and gardens
• Submitting artwork (a photo, image, poem, recording, or short essay of 150 words or less) in response to this prompt: How has GilChrist supported healing for you personally, through your work in the world, and/or your relationship to Earth? What is your hope for how GilChrist can support healing in the future?

To participate in these or other ways, please use this form to share your intention with us. We hope you’ll join us as we stand together at the edge of the next 25 years, with heads, hands, and hearts poised to respond in solidarity to the call for healing that echoes now through every corner of creation. 

More information on the anniversary celebration throughout October can be found here.