Teachers Wellness Retreat
at The Ojai Foundation
 
August 21-23, 2009
Friday 5 pm- Sunday 5 pm
 
Step out of time for a moment to celebrate the beauty of your service. Connect with other compassionate, innovative leaders in your field for a weekend of rejuvenation and empowerment, designed specifically to meet the unique needs of teachers.
 
As a participant, you will engage in experiences that will support you in bringing mindfulness, presence and perspective into your daily life as well as methods for implementing these practices into the classroom. You will have the opportunity to express your strengths and creativity while gaining insight into your challenges in a sacred, supportive environment.
 
The Ojai Foundation’s beautiful, rustic educational center occupies 40 acres along a ridge of semi-wilderness at the foot of the Los Padres Mountains in Upper Ojai. Meditation gardens, native habitats, permaculture principles and the Beauty Way are demonstrated throughout the Land, along with rustic yurts and domes, shared facilities and close kindredship with the natural world.
 
Intentional Activities will include:
·        Way of Council
·        Restorative and Revitalizing Yoga Practices
·        Medicine Wheel Teaching
·        Mindful Awareness Practice
·        Creative Expression
·        Dialogue & Storytelling
·        Visioning
 
*    Mindfulness:  Witnessing (Brain) *   Presence: Being  (Heart)
*   Perspective: Choosing (Consciousness)
   
All levels of experience are welcome.
 
About the Facilitators:
Abby Wills is a graduate of Pacific Oaks College where she studied developmental   education and social change theory. For over a decade, Abby has worked to enhance well being in schools through yoga and mindfulness programs. She has led professional development workshops for teachers across the nation and has trained yoga teachers internationally. Abby is currently on faculty at The Walther School and New Roads        Middle School.
 
Rachel Dawson is The Ojai Foundation’s Land Steward and Volunteer Coordinator. For eight years, she worked with TreePeople in Los Angeles where she supported teacher and parent led tree planting projects on school campuses. She is a graduate of Larry Santoyo’s L.A. Urban Permaculture Design Course and Ariel Spilsbury’s 13 Moon Priestess Ordination.  She continues to deepen her relationship with spirit through her advanced work in the Third Road faerie tradition.
 
The mission of The Ojai Foundation is to strengthen individuals, families, schools and communities by teaching ways to listen and speak from the heart, to honor life's passages and to deepen our connection with nature—supporting the emergence of a compassionate, sustainable and peaceful world.
 
Please call 213-926-3810 to register.
$425 for the weekend
$100 deposit holds your space
Space is limited, please register by August 9th
Inquire about partial scholarships
 
www.abbywills.com
www.ojaifoundation.org


--
"If there is any positive side to stark changes coming our way, it may be in the benefits of close communal relations, of having to really work intimately (and physically) with our neighbors, to be part of an enterprise that really matters and to be fully engaged in meaningful social enactments instead of being merely entertained to avoid boredom.

Years from now, when we hear singing at all, we will hear ourselves, and we will sing with our whole hearts."

"The Long Emergency", 2005, by James Howard Kunstler, Grove/Atlantic, Inc., publisher.