| This photo was taken at the end of the Awakened Action Retreat, November 2025 at Upaya Zen Center, Santa Fe, NM. Pictured left to right: Terry Tempest Williams, Molly Crockett, Valerie Brown, Rebecca Solnit, Roshi Joan Halifax, and Dainin Wendy Lau, MD Real power is in coming together to speak truth with compassion, love, and peacemaking, to connect with each other, to turn towards all that is unsettled in our hearts and in the world, and to act from a place of courage and moral clarity especially now in ambiguous times. As we move into this season of gratitude, of giving and receiving, ask: How might moral imagination rooted in relational ethics inform your actions this holiday season? How might you imagine a world that doesn’t yet exist, that supports and uplifts all life. In this season of gratitude, find beauty in a broken world, know that you can begin again to do the long, slow, and joyful work of creating a better world. Gratitude is its own ecology system; gather gratitude around you. Grow it. Share it with others. Grow gratitude with this free 14-day gratitude journal from the Good Grief Network to support you in these days ahead.https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sQFjYPTvAyvwr9ruCJNquEt28UINGtSw/viewPlease enjoy your free copy of this truly valuable resource and please consider joining me in 2026 for these retreats. Join me for these upcoming events. Space is limited.  New Years – Open Heart, Peaceful Mind: A Retreat for Rest & Reflection LIMITED SPACES JUST OPENED! December 28, 2025 – January 1, 2026 (On Campus) Pendle Hill, Wallingford, PA As we move through a time of uncertainty and change, this New Year’s retreat offers a meaningful opportunity to reconnect with a caring community and engage in practices that restore clarity, courage, and calm. Through mindful rest, reflection, and nourishing spiritual practices, you’ll explore life transitions, purpose, and values while tending to your wellbeing. With silence, group dialogue, creative arts, nature walks, deep relaxation, and mindful movement, this retreat creates space to reset and realign. You’ll return home feeling refreshed, grounded, and inspired for the year ahead. More details and register: https://pendlehill.org/events/new-years-open-heart-peaceful-mind-a-retreat-for-rest-reflection/  Opening Heart 2026 Annual Retreat: Open Heart, Peaceful Mind: A Retreat for Renewal & Social EngagementSeekers Church, Washington, DC Friday, January 23 • 5:00pm—8:30pm EST Saturday, January 24 • 9:30am—4:30pm EST This annual Opening Heart Mindfulness Community retreat, offered in person and online, invites you to slow down, reconnect, and renew your capacity to meet the world with an open heart. Guided by Dharma teacher Valerie Brown, we’ll practice sitting, walking, eating, and resting in the Plum Village tradition, listen to Dharma talks, and share in a caring, diverse community committed to healing and social engagement. Beginning with a relaxed potluck on Friday and continuing with a full day of practice on Saturday, this retreat provides space for grounding, clarity, and meaningful connection so you can return to your life with renewed understanding and purpose. More details and register: https://www.openingheartmindfu…  Caption for the painting: Edouard Vuillard, In Bed (1891) Reclaiming Rest: Nourishing Practices to Renew and Restore Body, Mind, and Spirit March 1 @ 12:00 pm – March 8 @ 1:00 pm EST Spring Term @ Pendle Hill Quaker Retreat & Study Center Wallingford, PA, just outside Philadelphia, PA On Campus Many of us are stretched thin by constant demands and the belief that rest must be earned. This retreat offers space to step out of overwork and reconnect with practices that restore balance, ease, and purpose. Drawing on the Plum Village tradition, teachings by Thich Nhat Hanh and Parker Palmer, and the Courage & Renewal® approach, participants will explore burnout, the role of rest in peacemaking and social justice, and ways to realign with core values. Through mindful rest, embodied practices, and reflective dialogue, you’ll learn simple, practical tools to renew your energy and move through life with greater clarity. More details and register: https://pendlehill.org/events/new-years-open-heart-peaceful-mind-a-retreat-for-rest-reflection/  THE MEASURE OF OUR HUMANITY: Actualizing Compassionate Action in These Tangled Times – TRANSFORMATION with Valerie Brown March 29, 2026 | By Donation Online Program Transformation invites us to slow down and meet ourselves and one another with care. In this online offering, Valerie Brown explores transformation as a relational and embodied practice, reflecting on moral worth and how values such as inclusion, belonging, dignity, justice, and courage are expressed through everyday choices. Through contemplation, reflection, and shared presence, participants are invited to reconnect with what truly matters and consider how inner change can guide compassionate action in the world. More details and register: https://valeriebrown.us/events…  Pilgrimage to Silence: A Nature-Based Retreat for Rest & Renewal Onsite at Hollyhock Retreat Center, Cortes Island, British Columbia Program begins May 17 at 6:30pm | Program ends May 22 at 1:30pm Book now and receive 10 percent off accommodation prices. Offer valid until February 15, 2026. This silent, nature-based retreat offers a peaceful space to slow down, breathe, and restore. Surrounded by Hollyhock’s forests and ocean, you’ll step away from daily noise and reconnect through Plum Village mindfulness, Quaker practice, and Courage & Renewal principles. With noble silence, time in nature, and guided meditation, this retreat supports healing, clarity, and renewed alignment with what matters most. More details and register: https://pendlehill.org/events/new-years-open-heart-peaceful-mind-a-retreat-for-rest-reflection/  Geography of Change A Forest Retreat for Navigating Life Transitions with Valerie Brown On Campus | In Person May 29-31, 2026 Ben Lomond Quaker Retreat Center, Santa Cruz Mountains, Northern California Life transitions often ask us to slow down and listen more carefully to what is unfolding within us. Set among the redwood forests of the Santa Cruz Mountains, this in-person retreat invites you to pause, reconnect with what matters most, and meet change with greater presence and care. Through embodied, contemplative, and creative practices, we will explore how inner clarity and self-trust can guide meaningful action during times of uncertainty. More details and register: https://valeriebrown.us/events… Please consider supporting these extraordinary charities.Village of Love and Resistance (“VOLAR”) is a black and brown-led collective with more than 100 years of experience of living, working, worshiping, studying and playing, and praying in East Baltimore. VOLAR plans to renovate and transform a facility into a community and wellness center as well as rebuild and reinvest into the surrounding area through engagement of the people and implementing neighborhood development projects. Donate here: https://www.volar.site/donate Please support my friend Kaira Jewel Lingo and her partner, Father Adam Bucko, as they live into fulfilling their dream to build a spiritual and ecological community, a sanctuary of healing just 1.5 hours from New York City. Donate here: https://www.kairajewel.com/donate |
