Meditation Facilitation Mentorship Program (MFMP) London Curriculum 2016

Transcription

1 Meditation Facilitation Mentorship Program (MFMP) London Curriculum 2016 Dates Intensive 1: April 28 to May 3, 2016 Intensive 2: July 27 to Aug 1, 2016 Meeting Michael online: May 16, 30, June 13, July 4, 2016 Partner meeting: May 9, 23, June 6, 20, 27, July 11, 2016 Being on retreat within community facilitates integrating the material and deepening your practice. You are encouraged to join one silent retreat with Michael in addition to the dates above within eight months of the completion of this course. Please see last page for retreat locations and dates. Daily Schedule 9 to 9:45am - Sitting and Walking Meditation 9:45 to 10am - Check-in 10 to 10:15am - Morning Break 10:45am to 12pm - Theory Session 12pm to 1:30pm - Lunch 1:30 to 4:00pm - Teaching Skills, Role Play & Application 4:15 to 5:15pm - Optional yoga/movement practice The intention of this course is to provide the foundation for you to deliver basic meditation instructions to others. We hope this course will encourage you to develop and seek further forms of training and ignite a life-long engagement with contemplative practices.

2 Intensive 1 April 28, 2016 Day 1 Orientation / Ethics Reading Kit: Passages from Key Texts (hand out) What is Meditation? What is Mindfulness? Mapping Mental & Physical States Understanding Distractions April 29, 2016 Day 2 Meditation on Sound and Receptive Listening Developing a Personal Practice Anxiety: Distraction & Irritability How Meditation on sound can be uses in privately and in groups The 4 Foundations of Mindfulness Big Questions: What is anxiety? Understanding the difference between personal anxiety and existential anxiety. Our experience of anxiety: 1. What is anxiety like? How do you know when you re anxious? 2. What s the difference between anxiety and fear? 3. What is an anxiety disorder? What are signs and symptoms of an anxiety disorder? We are usually aware of only a few symptoms of anxiety. Once we notice these symptoms they are already overwhelming making it harder to cope. Anxious reactions feed each other so quickly that by the time we notice we are anxious we feel out of control. Then we end up dwelling on anxious events. People who struggle with anxiety have a hard time observing their reactions. Exploring how we can use meditation to turn toward things we want to avoid. We do this so we can take a fresh look at our habitual responses. Exploration of the role of technology; we will explore the impact of technology on our minds and bodies. 2

3 April 30, 2016 Day 3 Meditation on Breath How to transition from meditation on sound to the breathing body How to introduce meditation practice to others The 5 Minute Breathing Space and language for introducing meditation The 4 Part Breath Meditation Practice Belly or Nostrils: Why, When, How, Where? Moving from Content to Mechanism Meditation on Breath A meditation that s rooted in the body is the basis for developing a stable mind. In this section we explore how to trust the breath, where in one s body to focus on the breath and how to use the breath as an anchor. If there is too much striving or the mind is extremely distracted or there are unprocessed feelings from our past, it can be hard to relax into our breathing. Meditation on the breath restores our capacity for connection. Deep connection with others and ourselves is actually our natural state we just need to learn how to permit it. An embodied approach to meditation usually begins with awareness of breathing. This is an awareness practice, not an exercise in sculpted breathing; there is no need to adjust the breathing in any way whether deep or shallow. Just trust the body knows how to breathe. We simply attend to the breath by feeling it as raw sensation, getting to know it as it is: shallow or deep, long or short, slow or fast, smooth or rough, coarse or refined, constricted or loose. When we get distracted by thoughts or images or waves of emotion, we simply return to the physical sensations of the breath. Since the mind s tendency is to be scattered and easily distracted, we use the breath to anchor attention in the present. We train the mind, heart, and body to become settled and unified on one thing, at one place, at one time until the breath becomes relaxed and we become intimate with breathing without having a separate observer watching us. If you are sitting in meditation and the mind is on something in the future or past, then your mind and body are not in the same place at the same time. Fragmented this way, we all too easily lose touch with a holistic sense of ourselves. Embodying breathing is medicine. Mindfulness of breathing is a powerful ally. Feeling the pleasure of simple breathing allows us to trust the body, heal from our reactivity, and reduce our tendency to be caught up in the emotional and mental events that pass through us. Repeatedly returning to the breath can be a highly effective training in letting go of the identification and holding that freeze the mind and heart. It also develops ease and responsiveness and creativity. We will explore how to choose 3

4 a place in the body to feel the breath, how to let go of visualizing the breath, and the stages of trusting breathing. May 1, 2016 Day 4 Meditation on Breathing and embodied Feeling: Looking at Suffering and Stress Vedana: Understand the bottleneck of Positive/Neutral/Negative expereinces Role-play: Teaching Riding the Wave Practice Craving When an emotion becomes compelling enough to make it difficult to stay with the breath, then bring it into the focus of meditative awareness. Sometimes there are patterns in the kinds of feelings that lead to becoming lost in thoughts. Common sources for distraction are desire, aversion, restlessness, fear, and doubt. Questions for group: 1. Are any of these more common for you than the others? 2. What is your relationship to these feelings when they appear? As you notice the patterns, does that change how easily you get pulled into their orbit? 3. By clearly noticing their presence, can you overcome any of the ways in which these interfere with, or inhibit, whatever activities you need to do? Michael presents a psychological understanding of the term dukkha and how we learn how to open to it. Meditation on Feeling Usually we approach feelings as a way of sorting out our personal circumstances or history. How can we distinguish feeling and our reactions to feelings? By understanding the role of attachment and aversion in our minds and bodies. We like and want to hold on to pleasant feelings and we want to push away unpleasant feelings. Much of our identity is tied to refusal and much of our conditioning is related to our ability to tolerate frustration. Meditation gives us a stable base for self-soothing and emotional stability. When we talk about meditation on feeling we don't just mean emotions, we mean feeling the senses, the body. Meditation on the body has several benefits. First, cultivating mindfulness of the body increases our familiarity with our bodies and with how the body responds to our inner and outer lives, to our thoughts and emotions, and to events around us. This means letting go of 4

5 body images or recognizing ways we compare ourselves to an image. The mind and body are unified. When we suppress or ignore aspects of our emotional, cognitive, and volitional lives, we tend also to disconnect from the body, from the physical manifestations of our experience. Conversely, when we distance ourselves from our physical experience, we lose touch with our inner life of emotions and thoughts. The awakening of the body from within that comes with mindfulness can help us to discover, not only our repressed emotions, but also, more importantly, a greater capacity to respond to the world with healthy emotions and motivations. We use attention through the body to cultivate non-reactivity, including the ability to be present for our experience without turning away, habitually seeking or resisting change, or clinging to pleasant and avoiding unpleasant experience. All too often, our automatic desires, aversions, preferences, and judgments interfere with our ability to know what is actually happening. Learning to not respond automatically and unconsciously makes possible a deeper understanding of the present moment and our reaction to it, and gives us more freedom to choose our response. Being non-reactively present for our physical experience goes a long way in learning to do so with the rest of our lives. Meditation is a physical practice. Meditations on the body come down to the practice of honestly being aware of what happens to us and how we react to it. The more aware and familiar we are with our reactions, the easier it will be to have, for example, uncomplicated grief or straightforward joy, not mixed up with the second arrows of guilt, anger, remorse, embarrassment, or judgment. Emotional maturity comes, not from the absence of emotions, but from seeing them clearly. Homework This evening ride out an emotion. When you are feeling a strong desire, aversion, fear, or other emotion, don t act on the feeling. Rather, bring your mindfulness to the feeling and observe the changes it undergoes while you are watching it. You might choose to sit, stand or walk around quietly while you do this study. Things to notice are the various body sensations and tensions, the changes in the feeling s intensity, the various attitudes and beliefs that you have concerning the presence of the emotion, and perhaps any more primary emotion triggering the feeling. If after a time the emotion goes away, spend some time noticing what its absence feels like. May 2, 2016 Day 5 Mindfulness of Feeling & The Body and The Three Characteristics Existential Dimensions of Meditation What to do when things get tough Depression and Rumination (in general) 5

6 Review of Meditation Stages Sometimes thinking can be strong and compulsive even while we are aware of it. When this happens, it can be useful to notice how such thinking is affecting your body, physically and energetically. It may cause pressure in the head, tension in the forehead, tightness of the shoulders, or a buzzing as if the head were filled with thousands of bugs. Let your mindfulness feel the sensations of tightness, pressure, or whatever you discover. It is easy to be caught up in the story of these preoccupying thoughts, but if you feel the physical sensation of thinking, then you are bringing attention to the present moment rather than the story line of the thoughts. How can we feel what s happening without injecting thoughts. Exercise 1 Exercise 2 Exercise 3 Partner Conversation. When you approach emotions, what are the first feelings? That is, when we first experience strong emotions, what are our default attitudes? Individual Lie down and choose the feeling strongest in body. This can be physical, psychological, etc. What bodily sensations accompany this feeling? What s happening to the breathing? Any temperature changes in the body? Notice: Do these sensations trigger any other sensations? Partner Conversation Share with a partner what happened in exercise 2. Explore if there were feelings of isolation and aloneness or connection to others. We will explore how this practice relates to depression and rumination. The rumination spiral to depression: It is not the mood that does the damage but how we react to it (negative reaction starts the spiral: anxious about down mood, down about stress; frustrated with failure to think our way out of suffering, lost in memories or worries, etc.). Habitual ways to extricate ourselves from the downward spiral actually fuels the pain we're trying to escape: trying to THINK our way out of our moods, self-criticism: "What's wrong with me? I should be feeling happy!" 6

7 Challenge of each moment of the practice is to hold it longer than feels comfortable. Welcome unpleasant sensations or feelings - ask, "What is this?" to keep the mind from leaping in with rumination. (Clinical anecdotes introduced here). Challenge: Can we be with our unwanted emotions without making them worse? When in the cycle of depression is meditation helpful and when is it not? Tonight, read Chapter 1 of the Empathy Exams By Leslie Jamison. May 3, 2016 Day 6 Request Day Request Day Review Homework in detail. 7

8 HOMEWORK BETWEEN INTENSIVES 1. Establish a daily meditation practice for 30 minutes 2. Journal for 3-5 minutes (See Tuning-in Chart details below) 3. Watch responses to your suffering and try to distinguish between the inevitable discomforts of the human condition and optional drama that comes from avoiding our experience 4. Reflection paper due day one of the next session Note Practice being gentle with yourself: Recognize limits Awareness is never cultivated through intensity Notice how the object of awareness changes as you work with it Daily Practice Please engage the following three practices throughout this course: 1. Sit one 30-minute session of meditation each day. As the course progresses, the techniques will change but they will begin the same way. Focus on staying aware of your breath. Begin and end each sit with a minute of conscious reflection. At the start, clearly remind yourself that you are about to devote yourself to being stable, kind, open, and present. Consciously let go of any concerns, remembering that you will have plenty of time to take them up again later. At the end, reflect on what happened during your meditation session. There is no need to judge what happened; you just want to strengthen your mindfulness through a brief exercise in recollection at the end of your sit. Time each sit. 2. Choose one routine physical activity that you perform most days and experiment with doing it mindfully. This means doing just this one activity while you are doing the exercise not listening to the radio at the same time, for example. It is also best to let go of any concern about the results or in finishing quickly. Remain in the present as best you can. When the mind wanders, simply come back to the activity. Activities you might choose include brushing your teeth, washing the dishes, or some routine act of driving or walking. 3. For a 90-minute period during the week, maintain some regular attention of your posture as you go about with some normal activity. Without straining, assume a posture that is alert and upright. Notice what happens to your mood, thoughts, feelings, presence, and degree of mindfulness as you do this exercise. Your body affects your attitude explore this. 8

9 The Tuning In Chart At the end of each daily meditation practice, document the strength of the following conditions on a scale of 1 to 10. You don t need to evaluate any of this during the meditation session. Just rely on your memory of the meditation session. It is important to remember that this is not an exercise in grading your practice or yourself. The scale will change as your life changes. Reflection Paper: Due day 7, two pages, double-spaced Sometimes we experience suffering or dissatisfaction quite directly in our lives. Our relationships take a painful direction, our bodies hurt, or there is tension in the workplace. Perhaps somebody has caused us pain. At other times it is subtler, we can t concentrate, we feel restless or we think our lives are out of control. Please use one personal example and describe how meditation practice is helping you work with this. 9

10 THE TUNING-IN CHART Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesda y Thursday Friday Saturday Calmness Alertness Strength of preoccupation Ability to let go Motivation Enjoyment Sensitivity to the body Concentration Effort Quietness of thinking mind 10

11 Intensive 2 July 27, 2016 Day 7 Reflection Paper Due Check-in about Personal Practice. Bring meditation journal. Group discussion on Tuning-In chart Introduce karma Second Foundation: Meditation of Thoughts Wholesome and unwholesome roots of the mind PATTERNS OF COGNITIVE DISTORTIONS, adapted from David Burns These are 10 common cognitive distortions that can contribute to negative emotions. They also fuel catastrophic thinking patterns that are particularly disabling. We will identify ones that are familiar to us: 1. All-or-Nothing Thinking: You see things in black and white categories. If your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure. 2. Over generalization: You see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat. If you wake up in more pain you may think, I ll never be able to enjoy anything any more. 3. Mental Filter: You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively so that your vision of all reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that discolors the entire class of water. 4. Disqualifying the Positive: You reject positive experiences by insisting they "don't count" for some reason or other. In this way you can maintain a negative belief that is contradicted by your everyday experiences. 5. Jumping to Conclusions: You make a negative interpretation even though there are no definite facts that convincingly support you conclusions. a. Mind Reading: You arbitrarily conclude that someone is reacting negatively to you, and you don't bother to check this out. b. The Fortune Teller Error: You anticipate that things will turn out badly, and you feel convinced that your prediction is an established fact. 6. Magnification (catastrophizing) or Minimization: You exaggerate the importance of things, or you inappropriately shrink things until they appear tiny (your own desirable qualities or the other fellow's imperfections). 7. Emotional Reasoning: You assume that your negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are: "I feel it, therefore it must be true. 11

12 8. Labeling and Mislabeling: This is an extreme form of overgeneralization. Instead of describing your error, you attach a negative label to yourself: "I m a loser. When someone else's behavior rubs you the wrong way, you attach a negative label to them. 9. Personalization: You see yourself as the cause of some negative external event, which in fact you were not primarily responsible for. 10. Should Statements: You try to motivate yourself with should and shouldn't, as if you had to be whipped and punished before you could be expected to do anything. "Musts" and "oughts" are also offenders. The emotional consequence is guilt, and these statements set you up for feeling resentful and pressured. July 28, 2016 Day 8 RAIN method Role Play and teaching skills Practice the RAIN method R.A.I.N. is an acronym developed by Michelle McDonald, a senior mindfulness teacher, to summarize a powerful way to expand self-awareness. R = Recognize Notice that you are experiencing something, such as irritation at the tone of voice used by your partner, child, or co-worker. Step back into observation rather than reaction. A = Accept (Allow) Acknowledge that your experience is what it is, even if it s unpleasant. Be with it without attempting to change it. I = Investigate (Inquire) Try to find an attitude of interest, curiosity, and openness. Not detached intellectual analysis but a gently engaged exploration, often with a sense of tenderness or friendliness toward what it finds. Open to other aspects of the experience, such as softer feelings of hurt under the brittle armor of anger. N = Not-identify (Not-self) Have a feeling/thought/etc., instead of being it. Disentangle yourself from the various parts of experience, knowing that they are small, fleeting aspects of the totality that you are. See the streaming nature of sights, sounds, thoughts, and other contents of mind, arising and passing away due mainly to causes that have nothing to do with you, that are impersonal. Feel the contraction, stress, and pain that comes from claiming any part of this stream as I, or me, or mine and sense the spaciousness and peace that comes when experiences simply flow. July 29, 2016 Day 9 12

13 Meditation on Mental States. PM The 8 Fold Path & The Four Tasks Meditation of Thinking Learn to make thoughts the object of awareness. It s difficult to develop insight into our subtle identification with the thought process identifying with thoughts reinforces them and compounds the illusion or some one who is thinking. Meditating on thoughts is simply being aware of thoughts arising and passing away: that the mind is thinking; without getting involved in content. How can we notice thoughts without going off on trains of association or analyzing the thoughts and instead be aware of a moment of thinking. This is just a moment of thinking. If we are mindful of a thought it will likely dissolve as we return to the breath. Meditation Instruction: Mindfulness of the Mind 1. During meditation periodically ask yourself what is your relationship to what is happening. For example, you may feel some discomfort. Be mindful of your relationship to the discomfort. Are you clinging or resisting? Are you relaxed, generous, or kind towards the discomfort? Once you notice the relationship, hold it in the warmth of your attention. Once you have done this, you can investigate some of the present-moment elements of how you are relating. How does it affect your breathing? Are there any physical sensations or emotions associated with it? What are your beliefs behind it? Also, as you notice the relationship, ask yourself if that relationship or attitude represents a way you want to be or whether it contributes to a sense of dissatisfaction or dis-ease. Also, remember that there is no need for judging, criticizing or being upset with what we see when we look at our relationship to the present moment, even if what we see is unfortunate or difficult. Similarly, there is no need to praise or get involved with fortunate or preferred attitudes. In either case, the practice is to be mindful of the relationship or attitude without being for it or against it. This practice then allows the relationship or attitude to settle or relax. 2. Periodically notice the general state of your mind. Does it feel tired or alert, contracted or expanded, calm or agitated, fuzzy or clear, resistant or eager, pushing forward or pulling back? Putting aside whatever commentary or judgments you might have about the state of your mind, use your mindfulness to become more aware of the state. What emotions come with it? What is its felt sense? What relationship is there between your mind state and how your body feels? What does it feel like to step back and observe the state of mind rather than be in it? What happens to your state of mind as you are mindful of it? Mindfulness Exercises for the Mindfulness of Mental States 13

14 1. Choose an activity you do on a daily basis. This can be driving to work, preparing breakfast, reading , etc. For one week each time you do this chosen activity become aware of your state of mind. How does your state of mind influence how you relate to the activity? Keep a log of your changing states over the week and compare the role your mind state has on how you do the activity. 2. Consider what ordinary activity you do that helps you have a good state of mind. During this week, do this activity more often and become more mindful of what this state of mind is like physically, emotionally and cognitively. Explore how you might realistically maintain this state of mind after you have finished the activity that tends to bring it on. 3. Have a conversation with a good friend (or complete stranger if that is easier) about what might be the most common attitudes that you operate under. How do these attitudes influence what you do, how you see life, and how you relate to yourself? How do you tend to relate to people who have similar attitudes to your most common ones? July 30, 2016 Day 10 Equanimity & Loving Kindness and working with self-judgment Taking Care of the Caregiver A Description of Metta (Loving-kindness) Metta (maitri in Sanskrit) is the ancient Indian word signifying warm-hearted well wishing. Most commonly translated as loving-kindness it has also been translated into English as goodwill, benevolence, kindness, and friendliness. Loving-kindness has the benefit of combining two concepts: love and kindness. For different people and at different times one word of this compound may be more meaningful than the other. The loving part emphasizes the deep, warm flow of appreciation and happiness felt either toward oneself, another person, or any living being. The kindness part suggests that the love is concerned with the welfare of others. Combined, the compound word has connotations of a love, which is satisfyingly warm, and at the same time interested in the happiness and well being of others. Although metta may have a soft aspect to it, it can be phenomenally powerful, especially when joined with unshakeable determination. The Sequence of Loving-kindness Meditation The traditional form of loving-kindness meditation involves systematically directing our goodwill toward individuals in the following categories: oneself, benefactors, friends, neutral people, and enemies or difficult people. The principle for deciding which of the categories to begin with is to choose for whomever is the easiest to have goodwill. One starts the practice by focusing one's 14

15 loving-kindness on this person until they are established in good will towards this person. Then the practitioner moves on to someone for whom it is a little less easy to have loving-kindness. When a stable loving-kindness is established toward this person, the practitioner then moves on to someone for whom the loving-kindness is even less easy. In time one moves from practicing loving-kindness to people one already has warm regard towards to people one has no particular feelings for, and then eventually to people one might feel antipathy toward. As one's lovingkindness matures it becomes possible to have strong and meaningful goodwill toward even people who are enemies or who one initially dislikes. If having loving-kindness for oneself comes easily then this is the best place to begin. If it is difficult to have love toward oneself, then it is useful to choose someone from one of the other categories first. Once a stable attitude of kindness is established towards others it may be easier to then look upon oneself with kind regard. Read Tonight: 1. Essay on Loving Kindness 2. Essay by Dr. Cynda Rushton Ethics in Critical Care: Principled Moral Outrage: An Antidote to Moral Distress? July 31, 2016 Day 11 Fourth Foundation of Mindfulness: Mindfulness of Phenomenon The 4 Tasks Student Presentations Part of mindfulness practice is to step back from the details of what we are experiencing in order to notice the subjective feeling of being aware. So, for example, does our awareness or our mind feel contracted or spacious, tense or relaxed, scattered or focused? 1. In life there is suffering, due to its inherently unreliable, always changing, and tragic nature. We are to fully know life's suffering, as a precondition for our liberation. This can only be accomplished through concentrated attention, moment to moment, deeply feeling the fabric of existence, starting with breath to ground us. So that we can transform our habitual distaste for suffering, into accepting it fully, and therefore radically change the way we are with ourselves, and others. 2. Craving is the effect of suffering, not its cause. Because of dukkha, and five aggregates coming into contact with dukkha, we are naturally moved to look for ways to escape present unpleasantness. We are to let go of our craving, abandoning its hold on us, even for discrete moments. We turn away from our habitual surface preoccupation with sense gratification, to face the miracle of life and the reality of death. 15

16 We cease to be victims of our attachments and fears. That can be accomplished through mindfulness. 3. Next comes the cessation of craving, not suffering. Buddha knew tremendous suffering throughout his life, even after he got enlightened. The traditional distinction between pain and added suffering from clinging is really an artificial one. A more relevant goal is not to not suffer, but rather to lead a flourishing life. We are to experience life free from craving. That is true liberation, at which point the possibility of another way of life opens up. To be unconditioned means to not be conditioned by the three habits of greed, hate, and delusion. Leading us to be free to enter the stream. 4. Next is Action, in which we engage the world in a meaningful way. We have the capacity to be awake in every moment. Once craving is let go of, and then we can connect to what really matters to us in our lives and what it means to be fully awake. Aug 1, 2016 Day 12 Exit Interviews Closing 16

17 Partner Homework Every other week students will meet with a partner via Skype. This will be explained in more detail May 3rd. Format: You will meet with your partner for 50-minutes. For 20-minutes, Person A talks. For 20-minutes, Person B talks. For 10 minutes, joint conversation. May 9 th May 23 rd June 6 th June 20 th June 27 th Share what s happening in meditation on sound and/or breathing. The other person listens mindfully. The person who was listening then speaks for 20 min. Then have a 10 min conversation reflecting on the exercise. How are you bringing daily meditation into daily life? Describe one place where you are seeing changes and describe one phenomenon that was hard to bring mindfulness to. Explore what is preventing you from brining mindfulness to that experience or situation. What is blocking you? Share 1) How do I believe that my experience is permanent? 2) Explore the belief that experiences can provide me with a lasting sense of satisfaction 3. Explore a sense that there is an unchanging self, which is part of or in control in moment-to-moment experiences. Talk together for 10 min about your relationship to impermanence. What arises for you when you bring loving kindness to yourself? Describe images or feelings that arise when you are gentler with yourself. Describe your experience and any resistance/fear/curiosity that shows up in this exercise. 1. Describe the karma of your choices. As an example notice the effect of eating things that make you feel good and eating food that does not agree with you. 2. Describe the relationship between the impulse to grasp and the consequences of clinging. Do you cling to actions that make you feel good? Or perhaps deny consequences that make you feel badly? After each person has explored these questions contemplate the relationship between actions, their consequences and how you feel about this. Note: Karma is subtle, and not a system of reward and punishment. When you start to see intentions clearly it helps you identity and work with seeds of karma in your practice and daily life. Contemplation of karma is designed to broaden awareness of intentions, actions, and consequences, in body speech and mind. 17

18 July 11 th 1. What meditation technique has been most important to you in this course? 2. Are you able to disentangle from repetitive thinking more often? 3. How would you describe your practice to someone who doesn t know anything about meditation practice? NOTE: between now and the next intensive try and explore bringing your meditation practice into periods of the day when you have Dead time, that is, when you find 1-5 minutes with nothing to do. Focus awareness on immediate experience. Try to expand your sense of presence and connection to both self and environment. Silent Retreat Schedule USA Upstate New York - New Year s Retreat, Chapin Mill: December 28 - January 1, 2016 FRANCE Retreat, Le Moulin: August 5-12, 2016 CANADA British Columbia, Salt Spring Island, Stowel Lake Farm: August 22-29, 2016 * Please see website for more details: 18