Activity time: 15 minutes Invite participants to join you in a guided meditation. Say these or similar words: Begin by sitting comfortably in your chair with both feet on the floor and uncrossed. Your eyes can be open or closed. Breathe. Simply breathe. In and out, in and out....

Activity time: 25 minutes Acknowledge everyone’s hard work and creativity as participants look at their collective work posted on the wall. Ask: What was it like to bring together the high peaks and low valleys in your past life experience? This is the time for participants to briefly share...

Activity time: 5 minutes Lead the group in stretching exercises, demonstrating as you lead. These are the same exercises used in Workshop 2, adapted from the book Five-Minute Massage by Robert Thé: Exercise 1: Begin by stretching your face. Gently rub small circles all over your face with both...

Activity time: 5 minutes Light the chalice and offer these words by Marilyn Sewell in Breaking Free: Women of Spirit at Midlife and Beyond: We look at ourselves as we are, and life as it is, and we come to some reconciliation of the two. As we age, our aliveness shines forth from the depths of...

Activity time: 20 minutes Welcome participants as they arrive and ask them to put on their name tags. Help them post their Life Maps or Lifescapes on the wall. Encourage them to chat over lunch. As lunchtime draws to a close, read aloud the poem “The Layers” by Stanley Kunitz, the late poet...

Arrange for coffee, tea, and water at the workshop. Arrange for furniture setup: For large group: Place tables in a horseshoe arrangement (leaders at the head table, chairs around outside of tables). For smaller group: Place one or two table tables in a rectangle (leaders sit at a middle side and...

Coffee, tea, and water service items Tissues (for participant use) Newsprint, markers, and tape Chalice, candle, and lighter, or LED battery-operated candle Cloth and decorations for worship table: flowers, leaves, plant, small sculpture, or other decorative items Chime or bell for signaling time...

This workshop will focus on gaining an understanding of the fabric of one’s personal life up to the present. While one’s life to date is whole cloth, it is still being woven on the life loom in one’s own design with layers or stripes of personal events. Participants will come to the workshop...

The part of living that is opposite of connecting with others is solitude. It isn’t the same thing as loneliness. Instead it is the opportunity we give ourselves when we both become more aware of our inner depths and yet retain our sense of unity with others. As we live we try to honor these...

"Five Minute Practice of Presence" from Listen: A Seeker's Resource for Spiritual Direction, a publication of Spiritual Directors International, Vol. 2. issue 1. Used with permission. Printing This Handout Download a high-resolution copy of this Handout (PDF) for printing.

Activity time: 10 minutes Post the closing words so all can see them. Shuffle and set out Blessing Cards, text side down, and invite each participant to take one. Then take a card and read your blessing aloud. Invite participants in turn to share their blessings aloud; provide a pause between...

Activity time: 10 minutes Distribute Handout 1, Five Minute Practice of Presence, and Handout 2, Looking Ahead to Workshop 3. Respond to any questions. Invite participants to pack up their incomplete Life Map or Lifescape projects for completion at home.

Activity time: 20 minutes Introduce the activity, saying: When we review our succession of life experiences, we see that observed together they develop a lived pathway. We can make a visual representation of this by connecting our meaningful people, times, and places to create a Life Map or...

Activity time: 20 minutes Introduce the activity, saying: Following our middle-age years, the next life stage deserves a respectful label, like elderhood instead of old people....

Activity time: 10 minutes Post the journaling questions you have written on newsprint and read them aloud. Invite participants to write their responses to the questions in their journals.

Activity time: 15 minutes Remind participants of the home journaling assignment from last week: Consider the most influential people in your life. Divide pages into thirds and title each third of a page with a decade; for example, birth to age 10, age 11-20, and so on. Then, in the space for each...

Activity time: 10 minutes Introduce the activity using these or similar words: In 1954, a young research physician, Denham Harman, developed the “free radical theory of aging.” After decades of additional research, his work was accepted by the medical establishment. Now his findings support...

Activity time: 5 minutes Light the chalice and offer these words: Come into this circle of caring. We light this chalice as a beacon of hope, a sign of our listening, and a quest for clearer understandings of ourselves and others. We honor our shared moments in life. Lead the group in singing...

Activity time: 20 minutes Welcome participants as they arrive and ask them to put on their name tags. Encourage them to chat over lunch. If anyone is new to the group, invite them to make a name badge and to take and decorate a journal....