HENDERSONVILLE, N.C., July 21, 2023 - "Drinking from Poetry's Well: The Search for Freedom, Hope, and Healing" is the title of Kanuga retreat center's 2023 Lansing Lee Conference, to be held October 10-13. The event features presenters Dr. Catherine Meeks and poet/philosopher David Whyte. The Rev. Winnie Varghese will serve as chaplain.
Dr. Catherine Meeks is Executive Director of the Absalom Jones Center for Racial Healing. A sought-after teacher and workshop leader, Dr. Meeks brings four decades of experience in working to dismantle racism. The core of her work has been with people who have been marginalized because of economic status, race, gender or physical ability as they pursue liberation, justice and access to resources that can help lead them to health, wellness and a more abundant life.
Poet/philosopher David Whyte makes his home in the Pacific Northwest, where rain and changeable skies remind him of the other, more distant homes from which he comes: Yorkshire, Wales and Ireland. He has traveled extensively, including working as a guide in the Galapagos and leading trips into the Himalaya; much of his work chronicles a close relationship to landscapes and histories. He speaks to the suffering and joy that accompany revelation, and the necessity of belonging to families, people and places.
A national leader in The Episcopal Church, The Rev. Winnie Varghese is known for her inspired writing, teaching, and preaching. Before her current position as the 23rd rector of St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Atlanta, she served as Priest for Ministry and Program Coordination at Trinity Church Wall Street in New York City.
The lives of Whyte, an Irish/English male and Meeks, an African American female, began thousands of miles apart; however they have happily found that much of their way of thinking and being in the world intersects beautifully. Whyte has been a mentor to Meeks for more than two decades. Upon finally meeting, they realized their kinship as fellow human beings was greater than their physical and cultural differences.
Since early childhood, Meeks and Whyte have each been on soul journeys that—while staying present to their souls—have profoundly revealed and affirmed the necessity of discerning which paths lead to becoming more human.
This work is universal and defies all artificial boundaries constructed around race, class, gender, physical ability or inability, age, or intellectual ability, because the soul is not bound by such limitations. It is this universal search—guided by the heart's hunger to be free—that has led Whyte and Meeks across many mountains, rivers, and valleys to this place of commonality defying the bondage of boundaries and demanding freedom's release.
Though each is aware of and can celebrate their physical and cultural specificities, both have been open to the inner journey of exploring questions, fears, hopes, joys, defeats and all other invitations to seek truth. Identifying with one's cultural narrative alone is insufficient to support the soul's quest, and we must welcome the truth when it knocks on the soul's door.
In addition to sessions with Meeks and Whyte, the event includes intentionally designed space for respite, contemplation, prayer, meditation, and healing.
Conference registration is open: https://kanugalansinglee.campbrainregistration.com/. Financial assistance and payment plans are available.
Kanuga is a non-profit retreat center located in the mountains of western North Carolina near Asheville. A variety of accommodations are available on the 1,400 campus, which offers 20 miles of hiking trails and a 30-acre lake.
Discover more about this conference as well as other events for adults and youth at Kanuga.org.
SOURCE Kanuga Retreat Center
