March 7, 2025—March 12, 2025
5-Day Silent Retreat with Cynthia Bourgeault and David Frenette
A Rising Tide of Oneness
Unity Consciousness for a World in Bits and Pieces
Led by Cynthia Bourgeault and David Frenette
March 7-12, 2025
In this five-day silent retreat, Cynthia will be teaching from her newly published book, Thomas Keating: The Making of a Modern Christian Mystic, in a deep dive into Thomas Keating’s final visionary insights on Christian nonduality and planetary Oneness. Joining her will be longtime Centering Prayer colleague David Frenette, bringing his own complementary insights into Unity Consciousness and contemplative service.
The retreat will follow a modified Centering Prayer Intensive format, with three daily hour-long sitting periods, morning and afternoon teaching, individual silence, embodiment practice, and private interviews upon request. While the teaching will be based on Centering Prayer, experienced meditators on all spiritual pathways are warmly welcome.
The retreat will flow directly out of a day-long symposium on the same subject, featuring a rich gathering of Thomas’s longtime Centering Prayer students, interSpiritual colleagues, contemplative artists and activists, family members, and a strong cohort of younger contemplative voices. The closing event of the symposium, overlapping the opening event of the retreat, will be a canonical performance of Thomas’s final poetic teaching, The Secret Embrace, led by Thomas’s nephew Peter C. Jones.
While the retreat and symposium are separate offerings, you are encouraged to attend the entire event, with discounts available for purchasing the full package. Please see Link below. If you wish to attend both events, sign up for the retreat first and then email your confirmation to: events@garrisoninstitute.org. You will then receive a special discount code for the Symposium registration.
Link to the Thomas Keating Symposium: https://www.garrisoninstitute.org/event/thomas-keating-symposium/
TEACHERS
The Rev. Dr. Cynthia Bourgeault is an Episcopal priest and writer. She has been a long-time advocate of the meditative practice of Centering Prayer and has worked closely with fellow teachers and colleagues including Thomas Keating, Bruno Barnhart, and Richard Rohr. Bourgeault has actively participated in numerous inter-spiritual dialogues and events with luminaries and leaders such as A.H. Almaas, Kabir Helminski, Swami Atmarupananda, and Rami Shapiro. Bourgeault is a member of the GPIW (Global Peace Initiative for Women) Contemplative Council and recipient of the 2014 Contemplative Voices award from Shalem Institute. She is a founding Director of both The Contemplative Society and the Aspen Wisdom School. She is also the author of many books, including The Holy Trinity and the Law of Three, The Meaning of Mary Magdalene, The Wisdom Jesus, Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening, Mystical Hope, and others. For more information on Cynthia Bourgeault’s work, please visit her website.
David Frenette is author of The Path of Centering Prayer: Deepening Your Experience of God (Sounds True; 2012), a teacher of contemplative meditation, and a spiritual director/transpersonal counselor (now retired). He studied and worked with Father Thomas Keating for 35 years, and co-led a Christian contemplative retreat community under Fr. Keating’s guidance, where he lived monastically for 10 years. David has led Centering Prayer retreats at leading venues across the country, including 6 years at the Garrison Institute. His primary work is in developing spiritual and religious resources for contemplative practitioners, and supporting a unitive approach to meditation that includes body, mind, heart and spirit. David lives with his wife Donna in the Pacific Northwest, where he enjoys hiking in old growth forests, sampling Portland’s gluten-free food carts, listening to Beethoven, and meditating in his backyard studio shed.
COVID-19