Twice a year I look forward to getting together with a very special group of women, in the spring at Princeton Park and fall at DeKoven Center. Our last gathering was this spring in Princeton Park. It was a beautiful spring weekend where we spent time in groups and sometimes by ourselves.
On Friday we had dinner together and met two women who had driven from Nebraska that day to join us for the weekend. I love looking around and seeing familiar faces and new faces and to know I have a whole weekend to spend with them and get to know them better.
We had a wonderful in-gathering outside. Pat Hyams, a new member of the Council from North Shore Unitarian Church, planned our celebration around the element of Air. As has been said before, we have a very musical group of women and this was proved again. Under the trees, with the leaves just begin- ning their season, is a wonderful way to start our weekend. Pat had written a song we sang to the tune of “Amazing Grace” to call the directions, which made it even more wonderful!
The next morning, after breakfast we all gathered together to hear our key note speaker. Christine Organ is a member of Countryside Church UU who came to speak to us about our stories. She has written a book – Open Boxes: the Gifts of Living a Full and Connected Life - and is a regular columnist in Scary Mommy online - www.scarymommy.com. Christine shared with us her spiritual journey and how she became a UU. We then shared our stories of our religious or spiritual journey. As always, when you get us talking we can go on for quite awhile.
After lunch we had the opportunity to choose from four workshops. The two earlier ones were Writing as a Spiritual Practice, lead by our keynote Christine Organ and a Sacred Movement workshop led by Juli Cicarelli. Juli, Gretchen Ohmann and the women from Countryside Church UU choreographed simple flowing movements to some of our favorite UU hymns. The group shared their creation during Open Mic Sat- urday evening. During the second session there were two more workshops. Jenny Ross led a workshop on Creating Prayer Flags. We designed and decorated our own peace flags – one to keep and one to give to the UU Women’s Council. Those flags were used to decorate the Red Tent at General Assembly in Columbus, Ohio this past June. Heather’s workshop taught us how to use AIR (our honored element for the Spring Conference) for Healing, Play, & Social Justice. We also flew kites.
One of my favorite parts of this weekend was the two early morning walks I took up a hill on the property. Saturday I went by myself and was amazed by how high I walked up that very steep hill! Sunday I went with Jenny Ross and ended with walking the labyrinth that is on park property.
Sunday after breakfast we opened the circle and said good-bye, knowing we would see each other in the fall. Hope to see you there and have new experiences and make new friends!
— Sage Hagy
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