Dear All

The two workshop leaders I am pleased to introduce today are Robert-Louis Abrahamson and Alasdair Honeyman. They both came along to our first meeting in London and both have a lovely habit of unexpectedly pikcing up the phone to offer support and guidance when most needed for which I am very grateful. Although coming from very different fields they share a real passion for contemplative pedagogy which will no doubt make for some very interesting and vibrant workshops.

Robert-Louis Abrahamson was Professor of English at University of Maryland’s European Division for thirty years, teaching ancient myths, Bible as Literature, Dante, Shakespeare, fairy tales and other related subjects, inviting students to integrate heart and mind and imagination as they read and respond to literature. He was one of the original members of the Association of Contemplative Mind in Higher Education, presenting papers and workshops at several of the Association’s annual conferences, and gave a talk at the first Contemplative Pedagogy Network gathering, on “Contemplative Engagement with a Text”. He combines spiritual themes with music and readings on his Cambridge radio show Evening under Lamplight. He has recently spoken at Emerson College on Ralph Waldo Emerson’s seminal book Nature.

I have recently discovered that you are able to access online some free podcasts of Robert-Louis’s radio show. I’m sure he won’t mind me sharing that here.

Alasdair Honeyman trained as a medic and 15 years ago set up his own business doing mediation and conflict management.
it takes a level of both generosity of spirit and foolishness to offer to do such work; holding and containing groups of people in order for them to find their own way isn’t that easy particularly when they may have got stuck in less than generous patterns of relating with each other. Alasdair, discovered the discipline of sitting with other people’s nonsense through the discipline of siting with his own (nonsense). He has a secular vipassana practice and has been known to wear a red nose on occasions 🙂 You can find him here at trustedintermediaries.com.

Today I am preparing for a ten day solitary retreat so I will be out of touch for a while but the details of how to book for the weekend are on the events page. So far the weekend has been amazingly well supported by my colleagues from the University of Essex for which I am most grateful, but we need some other voices too! There will be a good mix of people for whom this is all very new and those who are more experienced so if you’re sitting on the fence or are worried that you don’t ‘known enough’ be brave and come along.

Really looking forward to seeing this weekend come to fruition.

With gratitude

Caroline