Led by Will Meecham, MD
March 21-23, 2025
an in-person program
Every day, we feel the warm aliveness of the human body. During silent worship, we feel the loving mystery of the Divine Light. In this retreat, we’ll strengthen the connections between these two experiences, using imagery, community, silence and shared inquiry.
Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God?
–George Fox
Click here to register!
Let’s gather together to playfully and collectively investigate human experience. What is this organism we call a Body? What is this awareness we call Spirit? What is their relationship to the experience of sacredness, of Divine Light? We’ll begin the weekend with a group discussion of Inner Body and Inner Light, with a focus on how we engage these in both worship and in our daily lives. We’ll spend some time viewing inspiring imagery, looking at the heart area as a region of biological, interpersonal, and spiritual power. We’ll practice in pairs to sense our own personal heart area resonating with the hearts of others. We’ll also enter a time of contemplative inquiry, carrying our sensing further, feeling our Inner Body’s relationship with the Inner Light, and the Divine. We will also share practices of movement and spend time feeling how the body relates with the redwoods and other life forms on Quaker Center land. The weekend will end with a time of community discussion and worship, to share and reinforce the insights and blessings collected during the retreat.
Will Meecham is a former physician, trauma survivor, accidental mystic, and long time meditator. His educational background includes studies in ecology, biophysics, neuroscience, ophthalmology, and reconstructive surgery. In 1987, while in the thick of medical training, he began Quaker Worship to explore connections between spirituality and science. After health problems prematurely ended his surgical career, he devoted decades to developing an embodied spiritual practice he calls ‘Mindful Biology’ (mindfulbiology.org). Along the way, he worked in environmental health, taught high school, became a yoga instructor, and practiced acupuncture. He has led classes at College of Marin, JFK University, the Interfaith Chaplaincy Institute, the Niroga Yoga
Institute, and elsewhere.