be a true feast of word, music, beauty and wisdom.
Just as in the original School of Chartres, students of Rhetorica sought to attain right relationship with the planet Venus and the goddess Aphrodite, this summer, a thousand
years later, we come together to study the great love stories of myth and history that have so powerfully informed our culture and spirituality -Isis and Osiris, Inanna and
Gilgamesh, Jesus and Mary Magdalene, Abelard and Heloise, Romeo and Juliet, St. Francis and St. Clare. And we will examine the goddess Aphrodite/Venus as Eros in light of the profound insight of Plato, that eros lies at the very root of the love of wisdom and the appreciation of the generative power of beauty.
To tell these timeless stories of love, we are privileged to have Jean Houston and Peggy Rubin who have taught together for over three decades and who are unsurpassed in their capacity to bring these great stories alive. Caroline Myss will also join with her incisive insights into the complexities of love in the modern world. Karen Rivers will illuminate the love expressed by the planet Venus, Apela Colorado will guide us in our dreaming as we contemplate love, and Jim Garrison will ponder the mysteries of love as expressed by Diotima to Socrates in Plato's magnificent Symposium.
Woven throughout the week, mystic and writer Andrew Harvey, together with world-class cellist Hans Christian, will create a Rumi Symphony. We will study the awe-inspiring architecture of the cathedral, walk the labyrinth by candlelight, and under Karen's remarkable tutelage, have the opportunity to learn 3 and 4-part harmony together culminating in an opportunity to sing in the cathedral itself.
Take a moment to listen to the beautiful voices of our community as we gathered on our last morning in Chartres cathedral last year.
Afterwards, consider traveling on with some of the group for an experience of
Mystical Portugal, led by
Calen Rayne and
Laura Esculcas, for a journey that takes us to four
places inhabited during the neolithic age, and more recently settled by diverse populations including Celtic, Roman, and Moorish peoples. Here we will immerse ourselves in the "poetry of place," and experience the energies left by master builders and people who have interacted with these sites long before us.
A special price is offered for those registering for both journeys:
