New Year Retreat: A Taste of Pendle Hill Community
With Cayden Leary, Liadhaín Saoirse Reilly, Rev. Rhetta Morgan, Christopher Staley and Dawn Weisbord
January 4 - 10, 2027
Settle, rest, and reset for the new year with self-guided time to work on personal projects in the context of community life at Pendle Hill.
Live into your intentions for the new year in this gentle week of Pendle Hill community. Bring your writing, your arts, your organizing strategy, your thesis project, or your mindfulness or yoga practice. This week will offer an opportunity to set our intentions for the year in community. Self-guided time will be supported by Pendle Hill’s collective rhythms. Enjoy Pendle Hill’s library, art studio, outdoor labyrinth, and 24-acre arboretum, and get a taste of residential life at Pendle Hill. The program will be supported by Friends in Residence Cayden Leary and Liadhaín Saoirse Reilly and elders Christopher Staley and Rev. Rhetta Morgan.
This retreat will offer a taste of community life at Pendle Hill. Learn more about this season’s resident student program, Finding Your Way: A Spring Term in Resident Community.
Schedule
Daily invitational offerings:
- 7:30-8:30 am – Breakfast
- 8:30-9:15 am – Meeting for Worship
- 9:30-10:00 am – Brief grounding practice and setting intentions for the day
- Noon-1:00 pm – Lunch
- 4:30-5:30 pm – Creative, restful, and grounding community practice*
- 6:00-7:00 pm – Dinner
- 7:15-7:45 pm – Evening reflection
*The afternoon grounding practices will give a taste of the Spring Term offerings, including writing as a spiritual practice, ceramics and other art practices, QiGong, and a poetry reading honoring the dark season of the year – lifting up themes of slowing down, resting, and the warmth of hearth and home.
About the Leaders
Cayden Leary
Cayden Learey (they/them), 2026-2027 Friend in Residence, is a playwright, educator, and interdisciplinary artist currently splitting their time between Vermont and Philadelphia. A practitioner of theater for both youth and adults, they hope that their plays may provide a meeting ground in which all may feel shameless in their laughter, sorrow, confusion or joy, and […]
Learn more about Cayden Leary
Liadhaín Saoirse Reilly
Liadhaín Saoirse Reilly (2027 Friend in Residence) is an Irish Friend and member of Waterford Meeting in the south-east of Ireland, where she was raised. She holds a Master’s degree in Writing from the University of Galway with a focus on Poetry and Non-Fiction. Liadhaín has a ministry around sharing the experience of Extended Meeting […]
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Rev. Rhetta Morgan
Rev. Rhetta Morgan is a singing healer, spiritual activist, and interfaith minister who has been gathering tools for healing and inspiration for over 40 years. Through her gifts of prayer, poetry, facilitation, and sermonizing, she cultivates hope and nurtures connection in her community as a pathway back to belonging and wholeness. As a facilitator and coach, […]
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Christopher Staley
Christopher Staley is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Art at Penn State University. He was selected to be the Penn State Laureate for 2012-2013. In 2017, he was awarded the Universities Milton Eisenhower Distinguished Teaching Award and in 2021 he received a NCECA Excellence in Teaching Award. Chris was once rejected to all the graduate MFA […]
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Dawn Weisbord
Dawn Weisbord, an acupuncturist, herbalist, and QiGong instructor, attends Haverford Friends Meeting. She has studied, practiced, and taught Qigong and acupuncture for nearly thirty years. In recent years, she has been exploring how the Quaker practices of silent sitting, gathered silence, expectant waiting, and continuing revelation relate to Qigong practices.
Learn more about Dawn Weisbord