Becoming New: A Weekend of Quaker Embodied Practice

A weekend retreat exploring a Quaker approach to embodied spirituality.

Whether you come from a Quaker, Christian, interfaith, or secular background, you are invited to come experience the season’s themes of death, rebirth, and new life as continually unfolding living realities.  This retreat is a deep dive into the body-based mysticism of the early Friends.

Before persecution prompted a cultural “cleansing” that erased the quaking body from our tradition, the first generation of Quakers understood the body as an instrument for hearing and following the promptings of the indwelling Spirit. Their forms of embodied worship, discernment, and social resistance dissolved the boundary between contemplation and social action, giving rise to a powerful movement for change at a time of political upheaval that bears striking similarities to our own. Together we’ll experiment with revitalizing these early Quaker body-based practices, exploring how they might find fresh expression in this historical moment when we need them more than ever.

What might become possible if we learned once again to trust the body’s capacity for spiritual perception?  How might embodied awareness deepen both our personal transformation and our collective response to the challenges of our time?

The weekend unfolds through the central Easter theme of rebirth, as encoded in early Quaker metaphor:

Friday evening: Sensing The Seed – embodied centering, grounding, and an introduction to dreamwork to discover the hidden life already stirring within
Saturday morning: Drawing Living Water – gentle, accessible movement that softens, aerates, and restores the inner ground, creating space for new growth
Saturday afternoon: Opening the Bud – breathwork and creative practice that explore the body’s currents of vitality, opening to the wellspring within and the grace that rains down from beyond ourselves
Saturday evening: Drawing Living Water – Quaker chanting that invites inner leadings to emerge and take shape in the outside world
Sunday morning: Inviting the Light – embodied practices of contemplation, wayfinding, and communal discernment that open to the clarifying, purifying, and guiding light

This retreat is offered in collaboration with The Center for Centering, a community for spiritual seekers longing to explore how embodied awareness and responsive presence might open new possibilities for personal and collective transformation. No prior experience with Quakerism or somatic practice is needed—only curiosity, openness, and a willingness to listen deeply to the wisdom of the body. Come explore what it is to encounter the sacred from the inside out.