PLAY & CONTEMPLATION: CULTIVATING ACCESSIBLE INTUITION FOR UNCERTAIN TIMES

September 10 - 12, 2026

Life transitions can be challenging to navigate only with our minds. Join a Circle of Trust® retreat where spontaneity meets wisdom.

Life transitions, whether chosen or unexpected, can leave us feeling uncertain, tender, but also open to new possibilities.

At work, we might feel called to a new vocation, experience burnout or question our professional direction. In relationships we might shift between family roles, end or begin a new relationship or experience a shift in friendships. We might change countries or communities and with it, our sense of belonging. Or we might simply feel something needs to change in our life, yet we don’t know what.

For anyone standing at a threshold, between roles, identities, or life chapters, the combined power of play & contemplation can be “good medicine”. It can provide the necessary space to pause, listen, and rediscover the path to accessible intuition.

“Intuition is often thought to be an endowment or mystical force enjoyed by the gifted alone. Yet all of us have known moments when the right answer “just came” or we did “exactly the right thing without thinking”, wrote Viola Spolin, considered the mother of modern improvisation theatre.

In this three day retreat you will be nurtured by an experience weaving together the playful, liberating practices of Viola Spolin’s improvisation method with the reflective, compassionate framework of the Courage & Renewal® approach, developed by Parker J. Palmer and the Center for Courage & Renewal, informed by centuries of wisdom traditions from around the world.

No prior experience with either of the two methods is needed.

You will be welcome by:

• A balance of movement and stillness

• Lightness and deep reflection

• Personal insight and collective connection

• A confidential trustworthy, carefully facilitated environment 

Over the course of three days, we will:

• Participate in games that awaken life creativity and presence

• Engage with deep listening without fixing or advising

• Reflect through poetry, storytelling, and silence

• Honor each person’s inner wisdom and intuition

• Speak from personal experience rather than opinion

• Explore the questions and possibilities emerging in our life transitions

Everyone is welcome!

More about the two methods used: Spolin Theatre Games: carefully guided exercises where participants can reconnect with their spontaneity, intuition, and embodied presence.“Through spontaneity we are reformed into ourselves” – V. SpolinThese playful exercises invite curiosity, loosen the habitual patterns of our minds, and help us access new perspectives, often revealing insights that thinking alone cannot reach. Improvisation becomes a laboratory for renewal – a safe space to try, notice, laugh, risk, and surprise ourselves.

Circle of Trust: a process that creates a respectful, contemplative space where participants can listen deeply to themselves and others.“Each time a door closes, the rest of the world opens up.” – Parker J. PalmerIn this setting, silence, reflection, and honest sharing are welcomed, allowing each of us to explore our inner landscape at our own pace.

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