Mark Nepo Retreat
The Deeper Teachers:
Fear, Pain and Grief
IN-PERSON Weekend Retreat @ Pine Manor
April 8th-10th
Starts on Friday, April 8th @ 4 pm
In Person Fee – $850 per person, includes program, shared room and all meals.
Please call 949-552-1633 to register or be put on waiting list.
Commuter Fee- $650, includes program and meals. 2 spaces remain
Vacination Required to attend.
Let everything happen, beauty and terror.
No one feeling is final. Keep going.
—Rainer Maria Rilke
Eventually, everyone will be dropped into the depth of life. It may happen because of some life-threatening illness or a sudden loss or from being loved unconditionally for the first time or by the sudden beauty of grace. But once broken open, the deeper, relational journey begins by which we truly know that we are alive.
Along the way, we all experience fear, pain, and grief. As human beings, we all experience the tendency to inflate and deflate our sense of self and the nature of our experience. And so, much of our spiritual practice centers on learning how to see things as they are. While this can help us move through fear and pain, grief is another matter. Regardless of what we may lose that is dear, such a ripping away is life-altering and there is no going back. These deeper teachers will all find us in time. Our challenge has always been to help each other face what is ours to face, so we can be as alive as possible for as long as possible in the tender journey we call love.
This workshop aims to uncover and personalize pathways that allow us to right-size our pain and fear in our journey to be fully here. So that our pain and fear can live in us rather than we drowning in our pain and fear. And to help us move with our grief from the old world to the new in all that life unearths in us. To be sure, fear, pain, and grief are inevitable teachers, and together, we must try to understand their language and their lessons.
My hope is that our time together will help you befriend your fear, pain, and grief and not be crippled by them. My hope is that you will discover one or two specific ways to move forward in your journey toward a blessed and authentic life.
Bring a journal.
We travel so far only to land where we are. We imagine other lives, only to meet who we are. We seek out love in special ways, only to find everyone is special. Humbly, we can’t avoid this journey. It is precisely through it that, if blessed, we wake to the life we want by being present to the life we have.
Mark Nepo
About the Facilitator
Mark Nepo is poet, storyteller and compassionate guide. His own deep exploration of life intensified after his life threatening journey with cancer. What transformed him initially has unfolded into a life’s work of inquiry and expression. Not coming from the stance of expert, he drops into his own seeing and allows room for everyone else to see from their place in the circle.
Pine Manor is honored to have had Mark give one or two workshops a year for over 10 years now. This photo of Mark is taken in front of the Wind Phone at Pine Manor.
