The Desert Foundation occasionally offers retreats, workshops, classes and other activities.
June 2011
Inner Stillness: The Wisdom of the Desert with Tessa Bielecki - Boulder, CO
April 2010
Sand and Sea: From the Desert
to the Celts with Tessa Bielecki
November 2009
A Wild and Laughing God: A Dialogue
with Tessa Bielecki and New Dimensions Radio
Upcoming
Retreats
Join
Tessa Bielecki and Fr. David Denny at the
first Desert Foundation pilgrimage-retreat
Sand and Sky
August 31-September 5, 2009
Casa del Sol Ghost Ranch
Abiquiu,New Mexico.
Read all about the Sand and Sky retreat
here.
May 2008
Ireland: Celtic Sages, Saints, and Sacred
Sites
May 15-25, 2009
From the tales of ancient saints to the
music and folklore that are the heart and
soul of the land, Tessa Bielecki and Noirin
Ni Riain will lead us on this journey of
sacred sites and sounds of Ireland. More
information available here.
June 2008
If you wish to observe present conditions
in Israel and Palestine firsthand, join
friends of Sabeel–Colorado June 14-28,
2008 for Seeking
Understanding in Israel/Palestine: A Two-Week
Fact-Finding Trip.
You can find out more about Sabeel in our Circle of Friends archives. Friends of Sabeel-Colorado is a local group affiliated with Friends of Sabeel-North America (www.fosna.org) and Sabeel in Jerusalem (www.sabeel.org). Their mission is to increase awareness of the situation in Israel/Palestine and to advocate for a just peace.
The Desert Foundation’s Fr. Dave
Denny and Tessa Bielecki participated in
Sabeel’s 2007 trip. We experienced
the heroism of Israeli and Palestinian
peacemakers and developed a deep bond with
our fellow voyagers. Read Tessa Bielecki’s
account of the trip, “Jerusalem,
Jerusalem …” and share
her experience of the meaning of the trip
and the human encounters that left her
“profoundly changed.”
For more information on this year’s
trip, please contact:
Joy Lapp at 303-494-2338, or email lappj@earthlink.net.
June 2008
Join Desert Foundation co-founder Tessa
Bielecki June 6-8 at Shambhala Mountain
Center in Red Feather Lakes, Colorado for
Walking
the Tightrope: Navigating Life’s
Tensions Creatively. Work
and play, service and celebration, solitude
and community—explore how to balance
the polarities in our lives by looking
at the lives of the Christian mystics.
Visit Shambhala
Mountain Center’s web site for
more information.
September 2008
Path of Transformation Conference 2008
Hamburg, Germany
September 4-7, 2008
Tessa will give a workshop on "Spiritual
Practice: Bringing Presence Into Our Lives"
and converse with other presenters from
Buddhist, Sufi, and Hindu traditions, as
well as representatives of indigenous cultures
and psychological disciplines. She will
draw on her experience of monastic life,
her writings on St. Teresa of Avila, and
her love for desert spaciousness. More
information available here.
September 2008
Inviting Wisdom
Earthy Mysticism: Wisdom from the Christian
Mystics and Poets
Fort Collins, Colorado
September 26-27, 2008
Looking at the Mothers and Fathers of the
desert, the ancient Celtic saints, Hildegard
of Bingen, the great Teresa of Avila and
other mystics and poets into our own era,
we examine aids and obstacles along the
path and how to navigate some of the crucial
polarities: work and play, service and
celebration, solitude and community. More
information available here.
September 2007
Celebration
of Celtic Spirituality, La Veta, Colorado:
The 2nd Annual Celebration of Celtic Spirituality
offers participants an opportunity to delve
more deeply into the richness of the Celtic
spirit by connecting the spirituality of
the Celtic Christians to the Desert Mothers
and Fathers. The Desert Foundation’s
Tessa Bielecki will lead a one day retreat
which will explore some of this approach
to contemplative spirituality.
April 2007
Sand
and Sky: The Desert Experience from
the Middle East to the American
Southwest" is a month-long class first
taught at Colorado College in April
2007 by Fr. Dave Denny and Tessa Bielecki.
This course explores the meaning of
the desert experience in Judaism, Christianity
and Islam and examines how
these Abrahamic traditions flourished in
medieval Spain and later took root in
the American Southwest.
February 2007
Click
here to learn about Mirabai Starr's
new translation of The Book of My Life
by St. Teresa of Avila and listen to an
excerpt read by Tessa Bielecki, whose audio
version of Teresa's Life will appear simultaneously
with Shambhala Publications' print edition
of this spiritual masterpiece.
"Fire and Light" is a month-long class at Colorado College in Colorado Springs, taught since 1993 by Fr. Dave Denny and Tessa Bielecki. This is a survey of the history of Christian mysticism from its Biblical and desert origins into the 21st century, with an emphasis on the Carmelite tradition.
"Wild at Heart" : Teachings and Practices to Free the Mystic in You by Tessa Bielecki - Available Now!
May 2007
Tessa will help lead a pilgrimage to the
Holy Land in May 2007. Other teachers represent
the Jewish, Sufi, and Buddhist traditions.
This is an opportunity to visit some of
the sites most sacred to all three Abrahamic
traditions, particularly in Jerusalem.
Contact tina@authenticasia.net
or call 888-586-9958.
Autumn 2005
Release of the new edition of "Practice
of the Presence of God"