Tag: 2021

Growing the Seeds of Hope and Reconnecting with

Self, Sangha, & Sacred Cosmos

May 7-9, 2021

A virtual Zoom-based experience

$35 registration fee

Additional donations for the GSV Scholarship Fund and/or The Mountain can also be made in the registration portal.

Register now!

Dear Siblings,

Instead of sending out a “last call for the conference,” I wanted to write you a personal note. I have a question for you.

Why come to one more Zoom conference, when everything in you wants to rush out into the world and be together with people you love?

Thirty years of experience as a breathworker, trauma therapist, and spiritual healer have taught me:

integration is everything —

And integration absolutely requires a few moments of catching our breaths together, harvesting our learning, healing our wounds, and setting a new course together.

And this is a chance to do exactly that.

It’s like the time at the end of a breath session, when the music quiets and you rest from the hard work of catharsis, journeying, and visioning … and let everything you’ve experienced soak into your bones and crystalize into a few clear insights to guide your life as you rise.

We’ve created the GSV Virtual Spring Retreat to do just this. I’ve asked some of the most seasoned teachers, facilitators, and mischief-makers in our community to come together, to share their own stories of hope and reconnection, and support you in reflecting on your own. People who’ve done the hard work of integrating their own journeys and the even harder work of helping others, do the same.

We’ve all been through it this year. Many of us ache to “get back to normal.” The funny thing is, though, we don’t “get back to normal” after traumatic experiences — we either heal and grow, harvesting our own discoveries and changing the course of our lives — or we stay braced against the powerful changes inside ourselves and around us.

There is extraordinary power in our community. I hope you’ll join us in harnessing and celebrating it.

And I think it’s gonna be a helluva lot of fun.

Come, come, whoever you are! Wanderer, worshiper, lover of men,
Whatever your race, class, culture or color,
serostatus or sexual wounds,
whatever you struggle with, heart, mind, body or soul …

whether you’re gay, bi, questioning, queer, or transgender,
single or partnered, poly or simply perplexed;
religious or atheist, spiritual, awestruck,
addicted, recovering, or reaching for heaven on earth,
outrageous or quiet, flamboyant or shy, prophetic or peaceful,
elder or newbie or somewhere between …

we welcome your sorrows, we welcome your joys,
we welcome your hunger, we welcome your gifts
we welcome your stories and questions and yearnings …
we welcome you home.

Registration closes on Wednesday, May 5

Register now!

See you in Zoomland! Oh, and bring a rock.

Hunter Flournoy
GSV Spring Convener

PS: The opinions expressed above are solely the conclusions of the convener, arising from his own rather unusual if somewhat extensive experience, and should not be taken to represent the opinions of the larger community of GSV, the GSV Council, its membership, humanity, or the galactic federation of planets … 😂

Growing the Seeds of Hope and Reconnecting with

Self, Sangha, & Sacred Cosmos

May 7-9, 2021

A virtual Zoom-based experience

$35 registration fee

Additional donations for the GSV Scholarship Fund and/or The Mountain can also be made in the registration portal.

Register now!

“For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land …” —from The Song of Songs

My Beautiful Far-Flung Family,

Are you ready to cultivate the seeds of hope?

Are you ready to reconnect with the parts of yourself that have gone into hibernation?

Are you ready to reconnect with the sacred community that yearns to feel your presence, and the sacred cosmos that yearns for your creativity, passion, and activism?

How can we live into our yearning patiently, even when we want to leap into each others’ arms?

Spring has come, and after a year of cultivating resilience in the face of deep division, isolation, and deprivation for so many of us, the time for hope and patient reconnection has come.

I invite you to join me for our Spring Retreat—yes, still virtual—but a crucial time for coming together to envision our next steps for creating a new world together. We will draw hope from deep within, from each other, and from the sacred cosmos in which we live and move and have our being—and walk forward with one heart!

“Then it was spring; and in spring anything may happen. Absolutely anything.” —e.e. cummings

Our time together will be devoted to asking the important questions of our time, celebrating the rich web of connections that sustain and encourage us, reawakening our hearts, bodies, minds, and spirits, and cultivating hope.

We will begin our time together with laughter, heart-sharing, embodied breathwork, and ceremony on Friday Evening, followed by an open time of sharing the poetry, songs, and stories that have given us hope in the last year.

One feature of this year’s virtual spring retreat will be the opportunity to deepen our experience of sharing and reconnection by participating in stable breakout groups. As well, a virtual “rocking-chair porch” will be provided so that we can visit with friends old and new.

Saturday and Sunday Mornings will begin with a beautiful breathwork and movement meditation and Tai Chi with Paul Plate.

Saturday Morning and Saturday Afternoon, Mahan-Kalpa Khalsa, Andrew Elias Ramer, and I will share the stories of our own journeys of hope and reconnection, drawing from our rich histories of deep spiritual exploration and sacred erotic activism, including over twenty years of combined experience shepherding GSV’s Sacred Touch Working Circle. These stories will be interspersed with Qs & As as well as opportunities to reflect in breakout groups on your own journey of hope and reconnection. We will complete the afternoon with opportunities for gentle breathwork, restorative yoga and harp music with David Jones and Teddy Jones, and an opportunity for deeper reflection with TS Pennington and Allen Lomax.

Saturday Evening will offer an opportunity for a playful and inspiring workshop, Authentic Relationship, with Sequoia, a dear friend of James Broughton, a transformational life coach, and a long-time teacher of sacred touch and authentic relationship.

Sunday Morning, we will close with conversations about hope, our individual and collective vision for the next year, a final breathwork experience, and our closing circle.

I hope you will join me for a playful, joyful, and profound weekend together of growing the seeds of hope!

All my love,
Hunter Flournoy
GSV 2021 Spring Convener and Mischief-Maker

Register now!