Join a retreat of your choice to ring in the New Year in community. All retreats are on campus at Pendle Hill from December 28th through January 1st of 2026. Each event culminates in an alcohol-free celebration on New Year's Eve with a homecooked dinner and reception, concert in the historic Barn, and midnight candlelit silent worship to ring in the New Year in caring community.
Music of Freedom and Sanctuary, with Karl Middleman
During this time of political and economic upheaval we seek safe places in our daily lives, places where we can find respite and sanctuary amidst the pain in our world. This workshop speaks to that need. Individual freedoms and the idea of sanctuary figure prominently in music and the arts — freedom from prejudice, freedom from physical harm, freedom to be a contrarian, freedom to think nothing at all.
In Music of Freedom and Sanctuary, we will probe the complex crosscurrents of life and art, exploring the role of music as a safe harbor for reflection.
Open Heart, Peaceful Mind: A Retreat for Rest & Reflection, with Valerie Brown
As we face growing uncertainty and the unraveling of systems once thought secure, there is no better time to connect with a community of care and engage in practices that promote clarity, courage, and conviction. We are called to see reality as it is, without succumbing to despair, while imagining possibilities and continuing to show up authentically, lovingly, and peacefully.
This New Year’s retreat is designed to cultivate rest, reflection, renewal, and restoration. At these times of change, high stress, and high anxiety, we need now, more than ever, to exhale deeply and feel fully nourished through resilience-building, heart-opening, peace-making practices and a caring community.
Welcoming the New Year is a perfect time to explore issues of transition, vocation, life purpose, passion, meaning, direction and underlying life patterns to live in greater alignment with your core values. Listen to your own inner wisdom and reconnect who you are with what you do.
Savor extended periods of silence, reflection, group discussion, creative arts, walks in nature, deep relaxation, music, laughter, and mindful movement. Surrounded by a supportive and caring community, you’ll return home feeling restored, inspired, balanced and uplifted toward the best version of you.
Transformative Arts: A Creative and Spiritual Journey to a New You
Within the sanctuary of Pendle Hill’s light-filled art studio and our creative community, we will journey into making an important change in our lives. Together, we will identify our individual thresholds that we are asked to cross at this time. Through guided visualizations, journaling, collaging, drawing, and painting experiences we will:
- Release that which no longer serves us.
- Learn to sit with unknowns and mystery.
- Identify and change the narratives we tell about ourselves.
- Practice mindfulness of synchronicities and everyday mysticism.
- Explore Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey/Wheel and see ourselves as the hero.
- Plan a meaningful and sacred transformation ceremony.
- Invite Spirit to collaborate with us through creative prayer.
- Cross the threshold of Transformation.
- Celebrate ourselves, our community, and the New Year!
- Begin the process of incorporating deep lessons into our lives.