Silence as Presence: A Silent Wisdom Retreat with Cynthia Bourgeault

“One might say, then, that contemplation happens when interior silence morphs into presence.”

– Thomas Keating, From the Mind to the Heart​

In this Silent Wisdom Retreat, Cynthia Bourgeault will focus on what contemplation needs in order to mature to the next step where it is pointing, beyond a lifestyle that favors silence, toward a capacity to directly encounter silence as a presence. Drawing on the teachings from her new book, Thomas Keating: The Making of a Modern Christian Mystic, we will explore this capacity which Keating was talking about so much in the final five years of his life. We are invited to take contemplation beyond going quietly into the silence and emptying our minds to vaguely sense the presence of God for self-calming and self-righting. And instead to cultivate the capacity to encounter a more subtle communication in which we are directly face to face with the assistance we receive from the imaginal realm, from the Great Chain of Being. As we begin to taste for ourselves a whole sensation of silence as subtle presence, we can learn to become proficient navigating the streams and currents of the information that gets contained in these transformations.

Join us on the sacred desert grounds of the Redemptorist Center in Tucson. Together we will engage a daily rhythm with centering prayer or silent meditation, chanting, teaching, time to be in the desert, optional yoga, Lectio Divina, and Sacred Movements, all in the container of the Great Silence.