About the Sacred Retreat in the Arts:
Artistic creation springs from the inner well of what is most real and deeply moving in our souls. Retreat awakens, heals, and renews us. Together, they create a dynamic, transformative, and interactive process.

At the Sacred Retreat in the Arts you will experience a shared and supportive community and a rich communion with others who are also working to develop and nurture greater self-awareness. As a result of the retreat process you will unlock your innate creativity as you unblock the ego structures that limit your creative expression. You will have the opportunity to cultivate and refine your artistic capacity and skills under the expert guidance of the faculty of teacher/artists.

The retreat sessions take place in the mornings. During the afternoons participants meet in their artistic disciplines for instruction and creative work. Evenings include personal sharing of music, song, artwork, and interdisciplinary activities involving the whole camp, as well as time for personal integration of our experience, relaxing around the camp fire, and fun.
The Sacred Retreat in the Arts is a unique opportunity to work deeply with your personal spiritual development and to enhance your artistic skills in the creative area of your choice.

The Retreat Process: Mornings
Guided by Saraswati Mimi O'Neill, but also including Iris Grant and Robin Becker, the retreat is a rich and integrated process of inner work. The retreat encompasses an approach that blends the transcendent or higher stages of consciousness with the imminent or personal dimensions. Out of this process emerge peace, power, strength, insight, and concrete tools such as the ability to defend against the negative inner critic in our everyday lives as well as in our artistic pursuits. What also emerges is a stronger sense of self and direct knowledge of our true nature, what the Sufis refer to as our Hidden Treasure, our wisdom, our talents, and our gifts. Methods used in the retreat include meditation, "inquiry" -- a sacred practice of self-revelation, music, sound practice, creative art, gentle movement, discussion, and sharing.

The Arts: Afternoons
Healing and Empowering Voice and Self - with Saraswati Mimi O'Neill
Saraswati Mimi O'Neill leads an experiential afternoon workshop in sound healing, voice opening and development, and singing. This includes work with breath, embodiment/posture, the healing in the chakras through sound, music healing, vocal technique, the psycho- dynamics of voice and self, and performance work. Participants choose one or several genres of music including classical or contemporary solo performance and ensemble singing. Choir projects for the retreat include: Bach's Cantata no.147, Heart, Voice, Deed, and Life -- including the renown choral, "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" (for soloists and choir); Mozart's "Laudate Dominum", the exquisite choral piece with soprano solo, from the Vesperae Solennes de Confessore, KV 339. Participants may bring whatever solo work they would like to the workshop, including operatic and classical song, popular songs of jazz and cabaret, or simple songs and chants. The workshop is open to all, regardless of prior experience with sound or voice work. Musical reading ability is appreciated but not required. Instrumentalists are also encouraged to attend and learn to sing, and are invited to play in the solo and ensemble works.

Painting and Building the Inner Altar - with Iris Grant
(please check back soon)

Dancing the Sacred - with Robin Becker

Robin Becker leads this creative movement workshop in which we will explore the boundless resource of movement that resides within each of us. From the perspective of the body as movement rather than form we will work with breath and sound practices while devoting attention to how our intrinsic fluid movement is deeply affected, shaped and enhanced by these practices. We will follow sensation from the inside out, allowing for the unfoldment of movement, information, emotion, and imagery as they emerge from the depths of the body. We will work with the elements in nature, earth, water, fire, air, and ether, and explore how the different rhythms and dynamics of these energies move through us. Viewing dance as a language and practice of relationship we will explore improvisation moving both in community and individually in a nurturing atmosphere. Participants will be given time to develop their own personal work as well. Previous dance or movement experience is not necessary for this workshop.

Biographies of Teachers/Artists:
Saraswati Mimi O'Neill is a long-time facilitator of spiritual and inner growth; a senior teacher and retreat guide in the Sufi Order of the West, she studied the "Zen of Sound" in Germany as a young voice student in the 1970s, after which time she began her training in Sufism. A professional singer of classical and contemporary music and a pianist, she has guided the technical and artistic development of countless singers in her private vocal practice in up-state New York, and in New York City, where she maintains a studio at Carnegie Hall. Mimi O'Neill served as a spiritual director of a Sufi center in Seattle, WA., for ten years. Currently as a spiritual guide she continues to support the process of inner unfoldment of many people around the world. Mimi O'Neill has presented workshops and retreats on sound healing, music, voice, and retreats on Sufism, and the inner life for over twenty- five years in the United States and Europe. She is also a member of the Ridwhan School which teaches the Diamond Approach, a process which utilizes the wisdom of modern psychological disciplines integratively with spiritual work. She is the author of Journey to the Sound God: Healing and Empowering Voice and Self Through Sound, and the founder of TransformationalPathways and SoulSVoicePath - a company offering training on tape and CDs in transformational growth, meditation, sounding, and voice training.

Iris Grant (please check back soon)

Robin Becker is a teacher, dancer, and choreographer. She has performed with the Martha Graham Dance Company, the Eleo Pomare Dance Company, and with her own dance company of which she has been the artistic director for ten years. She has taught on the faculties of American Ballet Theatre, the High School of the Performing Arts in New York City, and as a guest instructor at many universities across the country. Currently she is on the faculty of Hofstra University. She has led two workshops at the Omega Institute, and for the past three years has led movement improvisation workshops with flautist Paul Horn. Her work has been deeply influenced by her extensive dance training, fifteen years of study within the Sufi Order of the West, and by the work of Emilie Conrad Da'oud called Continuum. She believes in the power of dance to foster healing and transformation in our lives.