TIME, WOMEN, AND SONG
MUSICAL MEDICINE FOR MILLENNIAL WOMEN
SEPTEMBER 29 - OCTOBER 1, 2000
BETSY ROSE
In these remarkable and challenging times, women's ways of knowing, sensing, visioning, and creating are crucial medicine, for each other and for our world. This women's weekend will draw on ancient traditions of women singing together — for the sake of healing; to express grief, passion, and wisdom; to ease birthing and dying times, enliven our work, invoke the sacred, and weave community.
This retreat is not "about" singing. Instead, we will explore the power of singing to release inner worlds and bring us into a greater harmony and communion. We will sing songs that are sacred, playful, soulful. We'll share chants, rounds, South African Freedom songs, and original songs by contemporary women. Songs will be the touchstones, the teachings that will help us remember who we are, where we've come from, and what calls us forward. Our singing will open the body, awaken the heart, release the soul, and empower us for the daily tasks of living and loving, working and playing in a world that hungers for all of this!
Join in a timeless circle of song, of communion with women, with self, and with nature. Gather round the hearth to share songs, poems, and creative expressions from your life. Practice mindful breathing and walking amidst the redwoods. Drink in the sustaining power of women in community, in song!
"We are the women giving birth to tomorrow
We are the women who are present today
We are the women who know hope and sorrow
Women who work, women who play
Women whose wisdom will light the way"
—Betsy Rose
ABOUT THE PROGRAM:
Cost for the weekend is $120 per person. You may arrive as early as 4:00 p.m. to register. The program begins with dinner around 6:00 on Friday. Participants share in kitchen chores before and after each meal. The weekend concludes about 2:30 p.m. after brunch, final cleanup, and closing worship on Sunday. Meals are vegetarian. Sleeping accommodations are assigned first-come first-served in the Orchard Lodge (semi-private rooms near the dining hall) and are based on when your registration is received. When the Orchard is full, we will begin assigning people to the Redwood Lodge (bunk rooms on the lower portion of the property). Some allowance may be made for persons with special needs. Wheelchair access is available. Bring a sleeping bag or sheets/blankets, pillow case, towel, soap, flashlight, and slippers for the Casa de Luz. NO PETS PLEASE. Scholarships are available; please ask if in need. REFUND POLICY: $25 refund up to one week before the program.
For Friends traveling from a distance, inexpensive housing may be arranged the night before or after the program.
We will gladly assist participants needing to carpool or arriving by public transportation as best we can.
THINGS TO BRING:
Journal; tapemachine and tapes (optional); songs you love — or poems — to share at evening fireside circle; and drums, rattles, instruments of all kinds. Bring your voice, in whatever shape it is in!
ABOUT THE LEADER:
BETSY ROSE is a singer, songwriter, recording artist and long time voice in communities of women and progressive activists. She has performed with artists such as Pete Seeger, Sweet Honey in the Rock, Holly Near and Cris Williamson. As a retreat leader and workshop presenter, she has taught with and been inspired by visionaries and teachers such as Vietnamese Buddhist Thich Nhat Hanh, Matthew Fox, Joanna Macy, and Starhawk.
Betsy is currently an adjunct faculty member at Starr King School of Ministry (Unitarian), teaching "Song of the Soul," a course on singing as a spiritual practice for personal and social transformation. Her many recordings of original songs speak to the justice, gender, and environmental issues of our times; her most recent recording, Motherlight, explores the inner landscape of parenting as spiritual journey. New recordings for families and children, and for educators and parents, will be available in the fall.
