The Urban Retreat

• Being Love: Discover love as your essential nature for all spiritual practice
• Calling/Being/Vocation: Explore the intersection of your soul’s purpose and your daily work
• Community/Authenticity: Learn to show up genuinely while honoring your need for belonging
• Creativity/Vulnerability: Embrace creative expression as a pathway to courage and truth
• Mindful Synchronicity: Develop awareness of life’s meaningful coincidences and divine timing
• Oneness/No Boundary: Experience life’s interconnectedness unlocking deeper peace & ease
• Nature as Wisdom: Receive teachings from the natural world as your spiritual teacher
• Letting go/Playfulness/Joy: Release what no longer serves while rediscovering wonder and delight
• Living in the Present Moment: Cultivate presence as the gateway to peace and authentic power
• Practicing Spiritual Attunement: Develop sensitivity to your inner harmony & nurture centeredness
• Quiet Mind/Still Soul: Discover the profound peace that exists beneath mental chatter 
• Light in the Midst of Darkness: Find hope, meaning, and illumination during life’s challenging seasons

Find yourself where you are.  Gently coax yourself into a deeper awareness of what exists at your sacred inner core. 

Missing meaning or a deeper purpose in your life? Or are you getting bogged down in the details of just getting through each day, week, or year?  If so, then try carving out a life path for yourself that fulfills your own deepest needs and inner longing.  Build a life that can hold you!

“Meister Eckhart says that many people wonder where they should be and what they should do, when in fact they should be more concerned about how to be.  The love side of your life is the place of greatest tenderness within you. In a culture preoccupied with fixities and definites and correspondingly impatient of mystery, it is difficult to step out from the transparency of false light into the more candlelit world of the soul.”

 — John O’Donohue

Invite yourself into the candlelit world of the soul.  The soul is precious and real. It's that sacred essence found at our spiritual center.  But the soul is also shy. Parker Palmer compares it to a wild animal.  If we want to witness it, then only a quiet stillness will bring it out of hiding.  Our Twelve Paths spiritual retreat is designed for just that purpose.

“This is the first, wildest, and wisest thing I know—that the soul exists, and that it is built entirely out of attentiveness.” -- Mary Oliver, Poet

• Taoism: Emphasizes simplicity, naturalness, & balance
• Buddhism: Focuses on mindfulness, ethical living, and compassion in the midst of suffering
• Confucianism: Focuses on personal morality, harmony, & community
• Hinduism: Teaches realization of divine nature in all beings
• Aboriginal Spirituality: Teaches interconnectedness of all living & non-living elements
• Stoicism: Teaches self-mastery & emotional resilience
• Jewish mysticism: Seeks direct intimate knowledge of divinity & universe's hidden structure
• Christian mysticism: Teaches direct encounter with divinity through intimate relationship
• Islamic mysticism: Emphasizes deep spiritual love & purification of one's heart
• Contemporary Spirituality: Focuses on holistic wellness, inner awareness, & ecological reverence for nature
• Perennialism: Proposes all major spiritual traditions share a universal wisdom
• Integral Spirituality: Teaches a holistic, inclusive approach to spiritual awakening, honors modern science, while incorporating wisdom of all major traditions.