LIVING INSIDE OUT
An Exploration of Creativity as a Path to Healing and Renewal

A Circle of Trust Retreat on the Ocean

November 5-7, 2008

"We are disabused of original giftedness in the first half of our lives. Then-if we are awake, aware, and able to admit our loss- we spend the second half trying to recover and reclaim the gift we once possessed."-- Parker J. Palmer, Let Your Life Speak, Listening for the Voice of Vocation (Jossey-Bass, 2000)

Whenever we find ourselves in transition, whether for reasons of career, health, personal, age, or lifestyle, we are confronted with many opportunities to re-create ourselves. Without support and careful inner listening, we miss clues and limit the scope of our creative potential. Living Inside Out is a retreat designed to help us hear our inner wisdom. With the community created in a circle of trust, we will explore creativity as a path to healing and renewal.

We are all born with a creative spark. For many, our inner spark gets diminished, dampened, distorted, or ignored. Fortunately, the spark can never be extinguished. Living Inside Out is a three-day program in which the space is intentionally created so participants have the chance to recognize, honor and reclaim our inner creativity. By creating a safe, supportive space that honors the words silent and listen emerge from the same group of letters, facilitators will invite participants to begin to let down the defenses we have built around our own deep listening.

It is a paradox that while we experience great freedom of choice, we are taught to do what's right rather than what we truly desire. We are encouraged to ignore the wealth of information that comes from within us. If we are lucky, our creative spark has informed our vocational choices and we work at something that feeds our souls. More likely, we nourish our creative spark through a hobby, a child, a dream or a fleeting memory. Living Inside Out is a retreat designed to help participants reconnect soul and role, reclaim those gifts.

One of the great myths of art is that we have to feel inspired, have endless ideas or feel confident in order to create. This is just one of the ways we are discouraged from hearing our inner wisdom and following our creative spark. Our connection to a divine source of knowing has been scrambled, and the journey back to ourselves involves reestablishing a dialogue with our cast-off or forgotten parts.

Skilled facilitators, grounded in the work of Parker J. Palmer and the national Center for Courage and Renewal (www.couragerenewal.org), help create a quiet, focused, and disciplined space-a circle of trust-in which the noise within us and around us can subside, and we can begin to hear our own inner voice. In large group, small group, and solitary settings, we will explore the roots of our own creativity and their intersection with our personal and professional lives, making use of stories from our own journeys, and insights from poets, storytellers, as well as the arts and various wisdom traditions.

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RETREAT LEADERSHIP

Sally Z. Hare, Ph.D., is a teacher and a learner. She is Distinguished Professor Emerita at Coastal Carolina University where she was the founding director of the Center for Education and Community. Before that, Sally served as Dean of the Graduate School and Continuing Education at Coastal. She has facilitated COURAGE TO TEACH® programs in South Carolina, North Carolina, Kentucky, Georgia, and Kansas, and leads formation retreats nationally with educators and other professionals.

Megan LeBoutillier, Ph.D., is a writer and artisan. She is the author of several published and unpublished books that explore the relationship between our wounds and our creativity. She is a weaver, a bookbinder, a stained glass and fused glass craftsperson and she is actively learning to draw and paint. She has facilitated Courage to Teach ® programs in South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia. She leads Circles of Trust in Virginia.

ABOUT still learning, inc. still learning, inc., is dedicated to the lifelong learning of teachers, educators, business and other leaders through renewal programs in workshop and retreat settings all over the country. For more information, see www.stilllearning.org.

LOCATION AND COST

The program venue is the Sea View Inn, a charming inn located on the Atlantic Ocean on Pawleys Island, SC, one of the oldest summer resorts on the East Coast. The retreat begins with supper at 6 pm on Wednesday, November 5, and concludes at the end of lunch on Friday, November 7, 2008. Space is limited to 20 participants. Programs typically fill well before the deadline.

The registration fee for this retreat is $799 and includes EVERYTHING: all retreat fees, materials, single room with private half-bath, wonderful Southern meals (hot breakfasts, dinner mid-day, and supper in the evenings!), generous coffee and tea breaks. Please mail your check, written to still learning, inc, with the attached registration form to Dr. Sally Z. Hare, still learning, inc, p o box 14028, Surfside Beach, SC 29587. Please register by September 5th to hold your space. (If space is available, we will continue to accept registrations after the deadline.)

For further information, please contact Dr. Sally Z. Hare at 843-238-9291 or sally@coastal.edu

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