At any of our retreats, you can expect a weaving together of the Dances of Universal Peace with at least some of the following:

Ritual; Breath, Sound and Body work;
Meditation Practices; Singing; Guided Visualisation;
Healing Practices and Storytelling.

Each of our Residential Retreats is structured and themed individually so that it has its own special character.

We currently organise and facilitate 4 retreats each year at The Marist Centre, Nympsfield.

All these retreats run from 6:30 on Friday evening to approximately 3:00 on Sunday afternoon and are fully catered.

The cost of each of our retreats in 2009 is £160 per person and a (non-returnable) deposit of £50 p.p. will secure your place. Booking information is sent out in advance of each retreat to all those on our mailing list. To join that list, or to book for a retreat, please see "Contact Us".

Retreats listed below, which we are leading but which are not organised by us, may be longer or shorter and the venue, price and booking procedure will be different.

For all details of these, please use the contact information given.

For our retreats at The Marist Centre, we have sole use of what has proved, over the past few years, to be a much loved residential centre near Stroud, in Gloucestershire. For further information about the Centre, and a typical timetable for the retreat, please click here.

There is a maximum number of places available on each retreat and early booking is advised.

We extend a warm welcome to all.

The following is a brief description of the themes.

2009

By extending the period of silence between the dances, we have the chance to engage in what the Sufi’s call ‘the pathway of ‘Mujib’ i.e. sacred listening.

With reference to Genesis, we will explore the creative silence that began the Universe, and can use this focus on ‘beginningness’ - and our innate potential to create anew in each moment - to help us with the transition between the old and new year.

This is our popular, annual relaxed weekend when, rather than working with a theme, we come together to share and socialise, and to dance your favourite dances.

The programme is created from the requests we receive so, please let us know what you would like to be included when you send in your booking.

We will undertake a personal journey of exploration to the ancient Goddess cultures of the middle east, drawing on some of the work of Neil Douglas-Klotz and Kamae Miller, to recover and re-embody some valuable lost wisdom and reclaim it for use in our lives today.

As well as song and dance, there will be opportunities to use other creative techniques.

This is equally relevant to men!

On this retreat, we will explore the symbolism of light in many spiritual traditions as well as our own understanding of it, and we will participate in a modified form of the Universal Worship Service, first introduced by the Sufi Master Hazrat Inayat Khan in 1921.

He describes this ceremony as "a devotional service which offers reverence, homage and gratitude to the one Source of all light, while symbolically acknowledging all the names and religious forms through which the light of truth shone"

A New Year retreat at Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre, Birmingham
Ffi and bookings: email: or phone 0121 472 5171