Carmi Soifer, M.Ed., is an award-winning poet and writing teacher. She brings decades of experience, care, and spirituality to her classes. Carmi has taught  community workshops on both coasts, and was Artist-in-Residence at Rocky Mountain National Park.

Do you long to see your characters come alive on the page?

Do you want to see the story tell itself though character, action, dialogue?

This class will help you make your characters fresh and full-bodied. We’ll see how they mirror, or contrast, with our spiritual selves, and how our inner knowing informs and helps embody them.

Through experiential exercises, we’ll see and listen to our characters as they carry the structure of the story.

This course is open to those involved in any form of fiction or related writing (play, screenplay, memoir), as well as would-be writers.

Do you have a story, a memoir, a poem, or lyrics you often wish you would write down?

Do you need to jump start a writing project that is languishing?

Are you lonesome for your creative self?

Support your worthy writing goals and give yourself protected time to listen to what wants to be put on the page in either prose or poetry.
 

Sue Sutherland-Hanson, MAT, M.Div.
		An award-winning poet and essayist, Sue teaches English to students from all language backgrounds at Edmonds Community College. Sue enjoys creating contexts for people to see the wisdom and creativity they embody. She has led workshops on spiritual autobiography, creative writing, modes of creativity, and the spirituality of the body. Her passion for diversity and her life-long connection to the Northwest infuse her art, teaching, and spirituality.

For more information:
Call (360) 598-4434.

Join Sue Sutherland-Hanson, M.Div and comparative religionist and spirituality writer Kimberly Beyer-Nelson as we tour four of Bainbridge Island’s magical labyrinths.

Our journey will begin at Grace Episcopal Church, then on to Rolling Bay Presbyterian, Sakai Intermediate School, and end finally at Bethany Lutheran.

Learn the history of the labyrinth in each location, what triggered their development within their respective communities, and how they were planned and implemented. At each site, we’ll explore a different way to walk a labyrinth, from holy day techniques to deep psychological inquiry to styles of downright playful prayer time. Dialogue about our experiences throughout the day will enrich the tour.

Participants should plan to bring a sack lunch and writing materials. Dress for walking and comfort. We’ll carpool from Grace to help save gas and encourage discussion and fellowship.

Sutherland-Hanson		Kimberly Beyer-Nelson

 
 
For more information:
Call (360) 598-4434.

Parenting is the most challenging and important job any of us will ever have.  Understanding how children think, perceive the world, and learn at different stages is very helpful to having a peaceful and effective relationship with your child.

This workshop will help you understand what “mindful” parenting is — parenting which includes being aware and sensitive to your child’s needs and desires and balancing them with your needs and desires — through better understanding how children relate to the world at the different stages of development.

This workshop will cover ages 3-6, 7-10, 11-13 and the teen years.

There will be lecture, discussion and some writing.
Childcare will be available.

About Peggy Swingle:
		Peggy Swingle has been a Suzuki piano teacher for over 35 years. An important facet of the Suzuki method is teaching parents how to work with their children to achieve success. Peggy has traveled, lectured, and taught all over the world.

 
For more information:
Call (360) 598-4434.

How can we work more deeply and
ecumenically with the juicy and enigmatic
figure of Jesus?

How can such a study invite us into a more rounded and organic understanding of one of the greatest wisdom teachers of all time?

What fruitful spiritual practices might we harvest from such an inquiry?

Join comparative religion scholar Kimberly Beyer-Nelson as she explores these basic questions through the lens of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras and with material from the Koran, the Hadith, and popular stories about Jesus from the Islamic perspective.

			With a master’s degree in comparative religion and a graduate certificate in holistic healthcare, Kim has been a spiritual director, qigong instructor, and yoga therapist for more than 12 years. She has had a centering prayer practice for over 20 years and delights in leading contemplative retreats. Kim is a published poet, essayist, and fiction writer.
	Kimberly Beyer-Nelson

For more information:
Call (360) 598-4434.

Allah-Akbar (God is Great) The calligraphy of the Arabic language contributes to the beauty of its poetry.

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Experience the music and symbolism of classical Sufi poetry, the delightfully mystical voice of Islam.

We’ll focus primarily on Rumi and Hafiz, but we’ll fold a few other representative authors into the mix, as well as do a little writing of our own!

			With a master’s degree in comparative religion and a graduate certificate in holistic healthcare, Kim has been a spiritual director, qigong instructor, and yoga therapist for more than 12 years. She has had a centering prayer practice for over 20 years and delights in leading contemplative retreats. Kim is a published poet, essayist, and fiction writer.
	Kimberly Beyer-Nelson

For more information:
Call (360) 598-4434.

People who love this world, people who pay attention, are gardeners, whether or not they have ever picked up a trowel.

Because gardening is not just about digging. Gardening is about cherishing.

And to cherish, one must be present.

Garden columnist, Henry Mitchell, wrote that one day we would all die, but that the questions is how we spent our days. Were we fidgeting over moles and fungi and varmints, or glorying — year by year — in the daffodils?

This is a workshop for people who love life.

And for people who wish to love life but are temporarily stymied. 
 

Terry talks about —

• Learning to be intoxicated with the world around us, focusing on what nourishes our soul.
• Opening our heart to the rhythms of the garden.
• Learning to practice the sacrament of the blessed present.
• Working to embrace the demanding marriage of loving and losing.
• Cultivating appreciation for ordinary gifts of grace, the value of solitude, and the healing power of nature.

Terry’s stories will lead you to nurture your soul and renew your sense of what it means to live fully alive.

			Terry Hershey has served as a Protestant minister, and is now a writer and garden designer on Vashon Island. Terry holds a mirror up to our fast-forward, disconnected lives, and offers us the “power of pause” — the wisdom of doing less and living more — in order to to regain emotional and spiritual balance; to find the sacred in every day. The Power of Pause (Loyola Press) is his tenth book. Terry’s work has been featured on The Hallmark Channel, CNN, PBS, and NPR. But mostly he loves to dance with his son, and watch bald eagles ride the currents in the canyon behind his house.

For more information:
Call (360) 598-4434.

In 1945, an incredible manuscript was found among the writings of what is now called the Nag Hammadi library. Written in Coptic, the Gospel of Thomas contained the sayings of Yeshua, the man we know as Jesus.

Come and share a contemplative and experiential journey into the heart of the words and the hearts of humankind.

The class is co-taught by Rev. Tom Thresher and Kimberly Beyer-Nelson, MA in comparative religion.

Kimberly Beyer-Nelson		With theological training, a master’s degree in comparative religion and a graduate certificate in holistic healthcare, Kim Beyer-Nelson has had a centering prayer practice for over 20 years and delights in leading contemplative retreats. She has been a certified yoga therapist, spiritual director and Reiki Master and has been teaching Yoga for Emotional Balance for years in both hospital and community settings. In 2002 she published “A Little Book of Wholeness and Prayer.” She is also a poet, essayist, and speculative fiction writer.
Rev. Tom Thresher		Tom is currently the pastor of a nascent Integral Church in western Washington. His recent book — Reverent Irreverence: Integral Church for the 21st Century…From Cradle to Christ Consciousness (Integral Publishers) — explores how churches can use their unique role in western culture to support the evolution of human consciousness.
Long a student of consciousness and spirituality, Tom’s exploration was inspired by eight years of intensive transformational work in a small group setting nearly 40 years ago. Ironically, that experience led him into economics. After completing a Masters in Economics and a Doctorate in Education at Stanford University, Tom taught economics for a decade. Following a personal crisis, he left college teaching and worked for 12 years as an artist/craftsman. A series of extraordinary events led him to seminary in 1998. He is now an ordained minister and spiritual teacher in the emerging field of Integral Christianity. Over the years he studied and worked with a Native American shaman, explored Zen and Yoga, and developed his own Westernized spiritual practices. For the past nine years he has led groups exploring the interface of religion, spirituality and science. He continues to develop and lead workshops in Transformational Inquiry and Integral philosophy.

For more information:
Call (360) 598-4434.

Come and share a time of
silent meditation in our chapel
as a way to enter the New Year with grace, calm, and peace.

We’ll ring our sitting bell at 10 am and sit for half an hour. Then we’ll do some very gentle movement, and sit for another twenty minutes.

We’ll leave in the quiet, taking our contemplative mood back out into the world.

We hope you can join us for this special Sunday event.

For more information: Call (360) 598-4434.

The symptoms of depression affect millions of persons across the globe.

But not all kinds of depression are the same. Some people get teary, some irritable, some can’t sleep, some sleep too much, some eat everything in sight, others can’t face food, some withdraw, some lash out, some just worry.

	Kimberly Beyer-Nelson has been a certified yoga therapist, spiritual director and Reiki Master and has been teaching Yoga for Emotional Balance for years in both hospital and community settings With theological training, a master’s degree in comparative religion and a graduate certificate in holistic healthcare, she has had a centering prayer practice for over 20 years and delights in leading contemplative retreats. In 2002 she published “A Little Book of Wholeness and Prayer.” She is also a poet, essayist, and speculative fiction writer.