Sacred Politics: From Conflict and Division to Unity in Diversity in Phoenicia, NY October 5-7, 2018

with Glenn Aparicio Parry and Susan Kaiulani Stanton

October 5th – October 7th, 2018

at the Menla Retreat Center and Spa, Phoenicia, NY

The dance of politics, like the dance of life, can feel complicated. Opposites may seem like the enemy, but they don’t have to be.

How do we find our center in a polarized world? Can we transform opposites into complementary partners, like women and men do in a successful marriage?

Yes, we can, but it is also inevitable that things will break down at some point; they do even in the best of marriages, causing a crisis. This is what is happening in America today. We are in crisis mode.

Every crisis poses both danger and opportunity – but to find the opportunity we must be patient. A desperate attempt to immediately exit the crisis only worsens it. Something like this happens when a nation chooses totalitarianism, attempting to clarify national identity by excluding certain types of people.

There are more effective ways through a crisis – in which diverse people and practices are welcomed and included in the circle; in which different views are listened to for the purpose of understanding, not to defend a position; and out of which a higher level of peace and harmony is created.

For peace and harmony to abide, however, we must go beyond the human level and connect to the wisdom that bubbles up from the land herself. It is this underground spring of perennial wisdom that was originally transmitted to Native Americans, who then transmitted it to our founding fathers. The founders may have started us on a good path, but their work was not finished; they left it up to the people to form a more perfect union.

We invite you to join us as we gather on the sacred land of our Iroquois ancestors at Menla, itself a sacred valley formed by an ancient meteor crater. We will utilize powerful ceremony (water, fire, and pipe); deep dialogue; prayer; “forest bathing” (conscious Nature walking); and dreamwork, all designed to create a microcosm of a more perfect union through embracing the diverse beauty of the participants.

About the Leaders

Glenn Aparicio Parry, PhD, is the author of the Nautilus award-winning book Original Thinking: A Radical Revisioning of Time, Humanity, and Nature (North Atlantic Books, 2015), and the forthcoming Sacred Politics (Select Books, 2019). He is also an educator, speaker, and ecopsychologist whose life-long passion is to reform thinking into a coherent, cohesive, whole. The founder and past president of the SEED Institute, Parry is currently the director of a grass-roots think tank, the Circle for Original Thinking. .

Susan Kaiulani Stanton (Mohawk/Native Hawaiian) is the Founder and Senior Grandmother of Grandmothers Circle the Earth Foundation, an international organization that travels the world in service of Mother Earth and future generations, giving birth to new Grandmother councils all over the planet.

Susan is Vice-President of the Great Balance, bi-located in the United States and Colombia with a focus on building a culturally appropriate university and the planting of one million trees to protect and perpetuate the culture and sacred land of the mamos, the Indigenous People of the beautiful Sierra Nevadas de Santa Marta.

She is a delegate with the International Public Policy Institute to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, and has also participated in United Nations forums on Indigenous rights.

Susan lives with her husband Brad Walking Bear Stanton (Narragansett) on the Mississippi River in the heartland of North America.

Schedule of Events

Friday, October 5th
4pm: Opening ceremony
6pm: Dinner
7:30pm: Introduction to Ceremony from Susan – Fire Ceremony
Introductions and Storytelling by the Fire

Saturday, October 6th
8am: Breakfast
9am-10am: Susan: Water Ceremony
10-11:15am Glenn: Toward a Sacred Politics
11:15-11:30am Break
11:30-12:30 Susan: Role of Native Women in Sacred Community
12:30-1:30pm Lunch
2-5:30pm Group Dialogue:
6pm Dinner
7:30-9:30pm Dream Group/Drum Journey into Dreamland

Sunday, October 7th
8am: Breakfast
9-9:30am: Check out of rooms
9:30am-12:30pm Nature Walk/Dialogue/Questions/Closing Pipe Ceremony

* Schedule of events subject to minor changes

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