We are pleased to be collaborating with a sister organization, Prairiewoods, to bring you this program series by Karen Hering. Karen has long offered programs at both retreat centers; we are grateful for this new series opportunity and to connect in shared mission with others on this path of learning and service.
A Year of Living with Change
with Karen Hering
Whether you’re living through significant personal transitions or navigating a world reshaping itself faster than ever, you are invited to join a yearlong conversation about how to make change more trustworthy. Come to one or to all of the monthly programs and additional retreats, or just drop in whenever you want to.
We’ll begin with a half-day online retreat Saturday, January 14 to introduce key dynamics of change and how to engage it more fully. (This program will be useful to those using Trusting Change in a small group as well as anyone navigating change, with or without the book.) Then, each month throughout the year, you can join an online program focused on one of the ten threshold skills featured in my book, Trusting Change. I’ll present selected content from the book and offer a focusing question or prompt and silent time for writing or reflection. After reflection, we’ll move into small groups to share how we each experience and engage that month’s threshold skill in the context of change. Dates and topics for each online session are listed below.
Participants can join all the monthly offerings or attend selectively, based on time and interest; and though the conversations will be enriched by reading along in Trusting Change, participation will be accessible to those unable to do the reading. In two additional in-person weekend retreats, on the spring and fall equinoxes, I will offer a deeper dive into the material for those who are interested and able to attend in the upper Midwest – at Prairiewoods March 17-19 and at the Christine Center September 22-24 (details also included below).
Karen Hering
Karen is a writer and teacher who has been immersed in the work of words for most of her life. She is an ordained Unitarian Universalist minister and author of Writing to Wake the Soul: Opening the Sacred Conversation Within and Trusting Change: Finding Our Way through Personal and Global Transformation, newly published in 2022. As a consulting literary minister based in St. Paul, Minnesota, Karen leads guided writing sessions, retreats and programs about living well in the midst of change in community, congregational and workplace settings, and online. She also serves as a companion and guide for people and organizations on the threshold of significant change. Her writing has appeared in literary journals, periodicals and meditation anthologies.
Wherever you are in your journey through change, I hope you’ll join these conversations.
Your voice will bring wisdom for others,
while theirs may offer just the perspective you need on your threshold.
A Year of Living with Change: 2023 Schedule
Stepping in: Finding Our Way in the Dynamics of Change
Saturday, January 14, 10:30 am – 1 pm, CT, online retreat
We’ll explore the dynamics of change – and essential approaches to engaging it fully. Drawing from my book, Trusting Change, we’ll consider some of the ways we’ve been taught not to engage it and share simple approaches to navigate it more reliably. With guided reflection (in writing or otherwise) and small group conversation, this 2½ hour online gathering will offer grounding and support for anyone on the cusp of great change, including those leading groups through the book, Trusting Change, and those reading the book on their own. Online participation is open to “Threshold Times” paid subscribers and to those who register through Prairiewoods or the Christine Center. Save the date now. An email with registration information will be sent to Threshold Times subscribers in early January. Registration fee for this session through Prairiewoods or the Christine Center is $20.
**Additional Registration Step Required**
Once you have registered and paid, you will subsequently receive an email confirmation with a Zoom registration link. This will confirm your registration and you will receive another email from Karen with the Zoom meeting link for that month’s online session.
Monthly online Threshold Conversations, Tuesdays, 7-8:30 pm CT
When registering through the Christine Center or Prairiewoods the fee is $15 for each session.
Register Tues, July 18 (Claiming Companions)
August: Summer break
Register Tues, Sept 19 (Moving On)
Register Tues, Oct 17 (Imagining a Way)
Register Tues, Nov 14 (Widening What We Trust)
Register Tues, Dec 12 (Blessing the Journey – New Moon).
The December session will require that participants have attended one or more of the earlier Year of Living with Change programs or retreats.
**Additional Registration Step Required**
Once you have registered and paid, you will subsequently receive an email confirmation with a Zoom registration link. This will confirm your registration and you will receive another email from Karen with the Zoom meeting link for that month’s online session.
In-Person Equinox Retreats
Restoring Balance in Times of Change
Weekend retreat at Prairiewoods Retreat Center
March 17-19, 2023
As the spring equinox balances darkness and light and the earth tilts toward new growth, what rebirth is stirring in the chaos of change today? Karen Hering, author of Trusting Change: Finding Our Way through Personal and Global Transformation, will facilitate a retreat of guided reflection, writing, conversation, embodied practices and ritual. We’ll honor the new life stirring in the natural world on the cusp of spring and explore what is preparing to grow in our own lives after a season of loss and letting go.
This retreat, in a beautiful natural setting, offers community, spiritual practices and deep time for accessing your own threshold wisdom and hopes, both fierce and fragile. Participants can register as a stand alone program, or to underscore the monthly conversations with other threshold seekers occurring online in “A Year of Living with Change.” Registration details (handled by Prairiewoods) will be provided as soon as they are available.
A New Balance: Trusting a World in Motion
weekend retreat at the Christine Center
Sept 22-24, 2023
As the autumn equinox balances light and darkness, we gather to name what we are harvesting in this season of great change and to restore inner balance before winter’s long-nighted rest. Karen Hering, author of Trusting Change: Finding Our Way through Personal and Global Transformation, will facilitate this retreat of guided reflection, writing, conversation, embodied practices and ritual. We’ll explore new understandings of balance, spiritual deepening and trusting a world set in motion by these times of great change.
This retreat, in a beautiful natural setting, offers community, spiritual practices and deep time for accessing your own threshold wisdom and hopes, both fierce and fragile. Participants can register as a stand alone program, or to underscore the monthly conversations with other threshold seekers occurring online in “A Year of Living with Change.” Registration details (handled by the Christine Center) will be provided as soon as they are available.
Registration Coming Soon