by Facilitator on July 13, 2011
For two years Trent Yaconelli has attended the Summer Contemplative Retreats with Frank Rogers, Doug Frank, and Nancy Linton in southern Oregon. Lead singer for 5am, an award winning rock band from San Francisco, Trent has just released his first solo album with a set of songs inspired by his experience on retreat. Entitled “Birdwings,” the album is in many ways a journal of Trent’s spiritual struggle to hold suffering, receive joy, and live life in the present moment. Trent debuted the new songs at the Wild Goose Festival and will be volunteering as the retreat musician later this month at the Summer Contemplative Retreat. To hear more about the album as well as music samples you can go to Trent’s website here. You can download the album on Itunes here or get a physical copy of the cd (with a beautiful cover by the same artist who designs Josh Ritter’s cd’s) at CD baby. As one member of the audience at Wild Goose said after hearing the album, “This music makes my heart ache with love.” Check it out.
by Facilitator on May 2, 2011
Many of you have read or heard about the Greenbelt Festival held each summer in the U.K. Well, this June, after five years of planning, the U.S. will have it’s own art, music, justice, and spirituality festival. It’s called Wild Goose and it happens June 23-26, in Shakori Hills, North Carolina. Mark Yaconelli will be hosting three nights of storytelling at the festival as well as speaking. If you’re in the area join T-Bone Burnett, Michelle Shocked, David Wilcox, Jim Wallis, Shane Clairborne and hundreds of other talented musicians, activists, speakers, and storytellers for a great event. There’s a discounted fee up until May 15th. Get your friends and a biodiesel van and meet us in North Carolina. Find out more here.
Here’s a description of the storytelling nights:
Wild Tales: Real Stories by Regular Folks
Each night of the Wild Goose Festival we will host “Wild Tales: Real Stories by Regular Folks.” In this homegrown storytelling series six brave souls from the festival community will tell a true story, first person, in twelve minutes or less. Stories will be based on the evening’s theme and will be interspersed with live music by an eclectic mix of musicians gathered for the night. The whole thing will be hosted and facilitated by Mark Yaconelli, author, speaker, and founding director of the Hearth storytelling series in Southern Oregon.
We’re still looking for storytellers. This series is open to the entire festival community. If you have a true story that fits one of the evening themes email Mark at yaconelli@msn.com. Include a few sentences summarizing your story. Or show up to one of the storytellingevenings and put your name in one of our drawings. Each night we’ll select an interested audience member to get up on stage and share their own true story.
Here’s the evening themes and some of our storytelling recruits:
Thursday Night: Locked Up: Tales of Captivity. As part of its mission, the Wild Goose festival will seek to high light prison injustice. As a way of exploring the prison experience we’ll gather six festival goers tell true tales of imprisonment (physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual) and their struggle toward freedom. Tellers include Becca Stevens from Thistle Farms.
Friday Night: Changed: True Tales of Transformation Hitting bottom. Death and resurrection. Befriending an enemy. A new heart and mind. This evening’s stories include healings, breakthroughs, and unexpected conversions.
Saturday Night: I Saw the Light: Encounters with God. A night of interfaith storytelling as we seek to gather tellers from various faith traditions to tell a true experience of the Other. Listen as Samir Selmanovic, Abdullah Antepeli, Rabbi Or Rose, Frank Rogers, and other festival goers tell true tales of religious experience.
For more information and sample stories from the true tales movement go to The Moth or The Hearth Storytelling.
by Facilitator on April 28, 2011
Mark Yaconelli leads a storytelling series in Ashland, Oregon called The Hearth: Real Stories by Regular Folks. On April 28th they’ll hold their spring storytelling event to benefit Rose Circle, a mentorship program for teenage girls in Southern Oregon. The theme is “Love Hurts: Relationship Struggles.” Tellers include Bryon Lambert, Davis Wilkins, Megan Sheer, James di Properzio, Renee Riley-Adams, and others. Music by Duane Whitcomb, David Hess, and Wendi Stanek. This month’s stories include breakups, betrayals, mother-daughter relationships, death and dying, and fighting with the in-laws. It will be a beautiful night of true gut-wrenching tales of human love. It all happens tonight, 7-9pm at the UCC church in Ashland, 717 Siskiyou blvd.
by Facilitator on March 15, 2011
Frank Rogers, Nancy Linton, and Doug Frank have spent the past seven years leading a beautiful retreat up in the Cascade mountains here in Southern Oregon. You live in cabins, spend mornings in silence, and Frank Rogers leads powerful spiritual exercises that help you recover your sense of God and self. There are two retreat sessions, the dates are June 26-July 2 and July 24-30, 2011. These retreats sell out each year, so if you’re interested register here.
Here’s the description:
The world moves at an inhuman pace, compelling us to move with it. We have too little time for remembering the spirit that brought us to our place of work or study, too few opportunities for replenishing the inner resources upon which the genuine expression of our gifts depends. Before we know it, we are living at the surface, running on empty. Why not step back and take some time out for self-recollection?
Spend a rejuvenating week in our serene mountain community, in the company of others who wrestle with similar challenges, who are on a similar journey. Let the silence and the solitude bring you closer to yourself, awaken what is deepest in your, reconnect you with what you love.
Allow the experience of contemplative listening and the practice of contemplative prayer animate deep thought and real talk about life in our world, the world in which we work, study, and seek to be true to our calling. For more information go to Greensprings retreat.
by Facilitator on March 14, 2011
In retreats and workshops we try to emphasis the interconnectedness of self-compassion to compassion for others (“love your neighbor as you love yourself”). Now new scientific research shows that compassion for yourself, though difficult, has health benefits. Read the article from the New York Times here.
by Facilitator on February 22, 2011
Christians protecting Muslims during their prayers in Tahrir. Their turn to repay the favor after Muslims turned up to protect Coptic churches on their Christmas Mass after the Alexandria bombing. In the darkness, we find the meaning of light..."
This is an image of what’s possible in Muslim-Christian relationships. Read the article by Reza Aslan that accompanies this photo of Christians protecting Muslims during prayer.
For two years Trent Yaconelli has attended the Summer Contemplative Retreats with Frank Rogers, Doug Frank, and Nancy Linton in southern Oregon. Lead singer for 5am, an award winning rock band from San Francisco, Trent has just released his first solo album with a set of songs inspired by his experience on retreat. Entitled “Birdwings,” the album is in many ways a journal of Trent’s spiritual struggle to hold suffering, receive joy, and live life in the present moment. Trent debuted the new songs at the Wild Goose Festival and will be volunteering as the retreat musician later this month at the Summer Contemplative Retreat. To hear more about the album as well as music samples you can go to Trent’s website here. You can download the album on Itunes here or get a physical copy of the cd (with a beautiful cover by the same artist who designs Josh Ritter’s cd’s) at CD baby. As one member of the audience at Wild Goose said after hearing the album, “This music makes my heart ache with love.” Check it out.
