‘In Celtic wisdom the sacred is as present on earth as it is in heaven, as imminent as it is transcendent, as human as it is divine, as physical as it is spiritual.’
~Dr. John Philip Newell, Sacred Earth Sacred Soul
In 2016 John Philip Newell began a teaching initiative of annual retreats to help reawaken awareness of the sacred in all things through the recovery of Celtic wisdom for today and to help translate this awareness into compassionate action in our lives and world.
Celtic Wisdom 1 is the first of a three-part series of annual retreats led by the Celtic teacher John Philip Newell and his colleague Cami Twilling in which we explore the sacredness of every human being, the sacredness of the feminine, and the sacredness of Earth.
The teachings of this retreat are based on John Philip’s award-winning book Sacred Earth Sacred Soul: Celtic Wisdom for Reawakening to What Our Souls Know and Healing the World (especially Chapters 1, 2, and 7, drawing on the wisdom of Pelagius, Brigid, and Teilhard de Chardin).
The essential text for the three-year Celtic Wisdom program is John Philip Newell’s Sacred Earth Sacred Soul, available in the bookstore at Bon Secours or from your favorite bookseller. The shared prayer book for this program is Sounds of the Eternal: A Celtic Psalter.
Celtic Wisdom 1 can be taken as a stand-alone retreat or in conjunction with Celtic Wisdom 2 and Celtic Wisdom 3, which can be attended in any order and at any retreat center across the country or online.
Check-in begins at 4pm. There will be a brief session at 5:30pm, followed by dinner at 6pm. The retreat begins after dinner at 7pm on Friday and concludes after lunch on Sunday. Mass will be celebrated in the Chapel on Sunday morning for those who would like to attend.
John Philip Newell is a Celtic teacher and author of spirituality who calls the modern world to reawaken to the sacredness of Earth and every human being. Canadian by birth and also a citizen of Scotland, he resides with his family in Edinburgh and works on both sides of the Atlantic. In 2016 he began the Earth & Soul initiative and teaches regularly in the United States and Canada as well as leading international pilgrimage weeks on Iona in the Western Isles of Scotland. His Ph.D. is from the University of Edinburgh, and he has authored over fifteen books, including his latest award-winning publication, Sacred Earth Sacred Soul, which was the 2022 Gold Winner of the Nautilus Book Award for Spirituality and Religious Thought of the West. His forthcoming book (August 2024), also with Harper One, is The Great Search, in which he looks at the great spiritual yearnings of humanity today in the context of the decline of religion as we have known it. Newell speaks of himself as ‘a wandering teacher,’ following the ancient path of many lone teachers before him in the Celtic world, seeking the wellbeing of the world. He has been described as having ‘the heart of a Celtic bard and the mind of a Celtic scholar,’ combining in his teachings the poetic and the intellectual, the head as well as the heart, and spiritual awareness as well as political and ecological concern.
Cami Twilling, based in Colorado, is the Director of Earth & Soul, a Celtic initiative of study, spiritual practice and compassionate action inspired by the teachings of John Philip Newell. As well as heading up the overall work of Earth & Soul, she facilitates the spiritual practice component of the Earth & Soul Annual Retreats. Previously she was the head of Contemplative Spirituality and Youth Ministry at Trinity UMC in Denver. She has studied meditation in the Tibetan Buddhist Tradition of Shambhala and received Spiritual Direction certification from the Hesychia School of Spiritual Direction in Tucson, Arizona. In addition to leading mountain and urban retreats, she has led international pilgrimage groups to Iona in the Western Isles of Scotland and work teams to Guatemala to build houses in communities that have suffered from political strife and economic hardship. Cami is passionate about the relationship between spirituality and action and believes that spiritual vision and practice can play a vital role in helping to heal and transform our lives both individually and together.