The Poetry of Your Life: Seasonal Mini-Retreats in Sacred Poetry & Contemplative Practice

Our lives are always speaking to us—through love and loss, longing and healing, connection and change. These movements are often subtle and easily missed in the busy pace of daily life. 

This seasonal online series invites you to pause, step back, and listen to your life and the Divine more deeply through sacred poetry and contemplative practices. Each gathering offers a retreat like space for stillness, reflection, and sacred listening. 

In these mini-retreats, poetry is experienced not only as something we read or write, but as a contemplative practice—a way of praying, listening, and attending to what is unfolding within us. Through reflection, quiet prayer, contemplative journaling, sacred reading, and gentle connection, we create space to notice what is stirring in our lives and meet it with presence and care. 

We will gather once each season, forming a contemplative community that journeys through the year together. You may join a single session or participate in the full series. Together, these gatherings offer a gentle rhythm that invites deeper attentiveness to love, healing, and the quiet presence of the Divine in our lives.

Participants will:  

• Slow down and intimately connect with their inner life  
• Experience poetry as a contemplative and spiritual practice  
• Deepen prayer through listening, silence, and reflection  
• Be gently guided into contemplative journaling and sacred listening 

Throughout the series, we will be engaging in poetry and contemplative practices from Colette’s new book, Leaving the Shore: Experiencing Poetry as Prayer. Learn more here. All will be live on zoom.

You are warmly invited to join us. Come as you are, whether for a single gathering or the full series, and make space to listen more deeply to the poetry already unfolding in your life.

Winter: Stillness and Trust (Closed)

• Wednesday, February 11th, 2026     1–2:30 pm (ET)/10–11:30 am (PT) 

Winter invites us into quiet listening, rest, and deep trust. Through poetry and contemplative practice, we explore stillness as a place of presence and care when growth is unseen. 

Spring: Desire and Blossoming

• Wednesday, April 22nd, 2026     1–2:30 pm (ET)/10–11:30 am (PT) 

Spring turns our attention toward longing, hope, and new beginnings. Through poetry and contemplative practice, we explore desire as a sacred movement toward life and notice what’s awakening within us. 

Summer: Play and Joy

• Wednesday, June 17th, 2026     1–2:30 pm (ET)/10–11:30 am (PT) 

Summer opens space for delight, creativity, and embodied presence. Through poetry and contemplative practice, we explore joy and play as spiritual ways of being fully alive.

Fall: Change and Letting Go

• Wednesday, October 14th, 2026     1–2:30 pm (ET)/10–11:30 am (PT) 

Fall inspires us to reflect on release, transition, and transformation. Through poetry and contemplative practice, we explore letting go and the grace that meets us in times of change.