Beyond Words: Poetry and Music as a Portal to Awakening
9-day retreat on the Big Island of Hawaii
with Kim Rosen and Jami Sieber
February 21 – March 1, 2012
For over 22 years now, Kim has gathered circles of kindred hearts in one of the most exquisitely beautiful and fierce landscapes on the planet. In this retreat she is joined by musical alchemist, Jami Sieber. The magic created by Jami’s cello and chant in oceanic resonance with the poems, songs and silence emerging from the circle is a constantly evolving creative font. Poetry and song as well as deep personal inquiry and healing stream between the notes of wind, rock, dove cry and cello.
Photos by Lyn Davis, Elisabeth Levy, Jack Kuehn and Kim Rosen
In these retreats we immerse in the poems we love and the words we write. They become our teachers, healers and companions. We invite the magic that unfurls as poetry intertwines with music. In addition there are sessions of breathwork, chanting and movement. We enter silence together and alone. The retreat culminates in a “mysterium”: a exploration beyond ordinary words that spans poetry and music, night and day, sound and silence, waking and sleeping, aloneness and communion…
“I feel I’ve shifted to a deeper, more ‘me’ place, and the shift feels permanent. I will never forget being held in my friend’s arms as I let the poem take me into the grief I’ve never been able to allow before. I carry the poems I learned in my heart and even more, the freedom I’ve discovered by letting them be my teachers.”
-Lyn, a university professor from Vancouver
Photo (c) Elisabeth J. Levy Photography
On the Big Island of Hawaii, creation and destruction are a constant red glow on the horizon from the Volcano. The spinner dolphins leap from the sea and the mountains are threaded with the burial caves of the ancestors. “Hale Kai”, a Balinese temple built on sacred ground a five minute walk from Ho’okena Bay where the spinner dolphins play and whales sing their wisdom, will be the home of these retreats. Our days are planned to allow plenty of free time for hiking, exploring and swimming with the dolphins and the miraculous tropical fish which abound.
