A Memory Café is a social gathering place where people with memory loss, mild cognitive impairment, early Alzheimer's, or other dementias can come together. Family and friends are also encouraged to join! In this relaxed environment, participants can visit, share common interests, and enjoy refreshments. A unique program or activity is offered each month that is stimulating and fun.

Away from the responsibilities, noise and the distractions of everyday life, you will be invited to consider what is going on inside of your soul, as well as consider the path ahead. The labyrinth is an ancient and reflective tool for finding spiritual and emotional balance, centering and grounding.

A Memory Café is a social gathering place where people with memory loss, mild cognitive impairment, early Alzheimer's, or other dementias can come together. Family and friends are also encouraged to join! In this relaxed environment, participants can visit, share common interests, and enjoy refreshments. A unique program or activity is offered each month that is stimulating and fun.

Children today spend half the time their parents did playing outside. This camp, aimed at youth between the ages of 7-12, is designed to change that by connecting children with the natural world. As we explore the forest and gardens of Sinsinawa Mound, we'll aim to cultivate a sense of deep respect and profound wonder for one another and the Earth.

Zentangle is a pen and ink meditative art form. The class consists of two sessions in which the participant will learn to draw eight to ten patterns. Interspersed with the drawing will be mindfulness and meditative exercises

Join the Holy Women, kissed by God whose creativity flowed into our world in art, music and writing: Miriam the dancer, Hildegard the artist/musician/writer, Teresa of Avila and Therese of Lisieux, the writers. This interactive retreat invites your creative expression as you explore art by and about Holy Women from ancient times (such as Mary Magdalene and the Woman at the Well) to today (including Tekakwitha and Hildegard). You will carry away a treasure of spiritual practices from your adventures with art, journaling, poetry, music, dreamwork, prayer and meditation -- each nurturing your spiritual growth in your own unique way. Invite these Holy Women to lead you to deeper trust in your own inner wisdom, grace and creativity in a welcoming setting.

A Memory Café is a social gathering place where people with memory loss, mild cognitive impairment, early Alzheimer's, or other dementias can come together. Family and friends are also encouraged to join! In this relaxed environment, participants can visit, share common interests, and enjoy refreshments. A unique program or activity is offered each month that is stimulating and fun.

A Circle of Drums is Bill Kehl’s high-energy, hands-on, let’s-create-a-powerful-moment-together presentation emphasizing collaborative, creative individual expression while also exhibiting the benefits of synergetic group dynamics. With an ensemble of beautiful drums and percussion instruments of all sizes and shapes from around the world, Bill energetically facilitates a meaningful team-building experience that exuberantly celebrates the expansive nature of human potential and the ecstatic response to group rhythm-making.

Come and see God's fingerprints of the story of your life. Discover the wisdom and strength of those who have deeply rooted you. Become the creative force and write the next chapter of your story by reflecting on the woman you are called to be. Spirituality is one thirsty woman telling another thirsty woman where she found water. Come and drink from the well and be refreshed.

Join us to honor the dawn of Autumn. In this two-hour session, we will celebrate the meaning of fall through ritual and contemplation. Participants will have the opportunity to engage in several types of spiritual practices, using Sinsinawa Mound's outdoor resources: the woods, hiking trails, gardens and the labyrinth. Bring a journal, a sketch pad, a book of poetry, sacred scripture or just yourself - whatever will help you better connect with the Earth. This session will take place outdoors and is part of our ongoing series, "Exploring a Contemplative Ecology."

Austin Smith will read from his new poetry collection, Flyover Country, an investigation of violence: the violence we do to the land, to animals, to refugees, to the citizens of distant countries, to one another. Smith holds up to the reader the beauty and cruelty of rural life, drawing from memories of his childhood on a family dairy farm in Illinois. In writing about the Midwest, Smith critiques the condescending idea of rural America as mere "flyover country," while at the same time suggests that America herself has become a "flyover country," carrying out drone strikes and surveillance abroad, locked in a state of perpetual war that its populace is weary of but seems helpless to stop.

A Memory Café is a social gathering place where people with memory loss, mild cognitive impairment, early Alzheimer's, or other dementias can come together. Family and friends are also encouraged to join! In this relaxed environment, participants can visit, share common interests, and enjoy refreshments. A unique program or activity is offered each month that is stimulating and fun.

Jesus' parables are not intended to be a rarefied study nor are they merely monologues to be heard and accepted without reflection! Justice is at the center of Jesus' spirituality;; his ministry is therefore, rightfully concerned with politics & economics, with living wages and workers' rights, with uncovering the hidden corruptions of the ruling system, and so much more. Come together with friends to reflect on Jesus' parables as subversive speech!

A Memory Café is a social gathering place where people with memory loss, mild cognitive impairment, early Alzheimer's, or other dementias can come together. Family and friends are also encouraged to join! In this relaxed environment, participants can visit, share common interests, and enjoy refreshments. A unique program or activity is offered each month that is stimulating and fun.

This is a day to listen deeply: listen to the World (its complexity, pain, and daring), and listen for the Heart of the Divine pulsing within it and ourselves. Grace courses through our veins and shines in all creation. Let us have eyes to see and ears to hear so that both personally and societally, we may be bolstered with compassion and hope.

Weaving the "Holy" ... into the threads of everyday life!
"God is present in the details of the everyday but is also visible when we pull back and take a wider gaze upon our lives and pay attention to the patterns and ways things have been woven together." Christine Valters Painter, PhD, Eyes of the Heart

A Memory Café is a social gathering place where people with memory loss, mild cognitive impairment, early Alzheimer's, or other dementias can come together. Family and friends are also encouraged to join! In this relaxed environment, participants can visit, share common interests, and enjoy refreshments. A unique program or activity is offered each month that is stimulating and fun.

The farmer-poet Wendell Berry (1934-) is arguably today's most important, significant, and interesting writer and critic on matters of land, health, community, and spirituality. This day-long retreat will be a celebration of Berry's life and words, contemplatively delving into his importance for our precarious age. This event is part of our ongoing series, "Exploring a Contemplative Ecology."

This ecumenical service will be held to honor family and friends who have died. We are planning to honor our deceased loved ones by displaying a personalized ornament on a tree. The service is a living memorial and provides an opportunity for you and your family to experience a new and meaningful ritual. During this service you will be presented with the ornament to take and place in your home during the holiday season

Join us to honor the longest night and shortest day of the year. In this two-hour session, we will celebrate the Solstice through ritual and contemplation. Participants will have the opportunity to engage in several types of spiritual exercises. This session will take place mostly indoors and is part of our ongoing series, "Exploring a Contemplative Ecology."

Mary Ellen is happy to join those on retreat in reflecting on the lives of "Women of the Passion," whose names have often been excluded or whose lives have often been hidden, yet whose spirits speak to us today of our own spiritual journey. Through first-person sharing, you will meet, CLAUDIA, wife of Pontius Pilate, MARY, wife of Cleopas, JOANNA, wife of Chuza, Herod's servant, SALOME, wife of Zebedee and mother of James & John, UNNAMED MAIDSERVANT of High Priest, Caiaphas, UNNAMED DAUGHTERS of Jerusalem, UNNAMED WOMAN WHO ANOINTED Jesus' head, and VERONICA, who wiped the face of Jesus. Each of these women mentor our own evolving consciousness of Jesus' Resurrection and His continuing spirit living within and among us.

A Lenten Evening of Music and Reflection

Come join us for an evening of music and reflection that will be sure to stir our hearts and guide us to a new awareness of God's work within us. For years, the music of Dan Schutte has anchored the faith of Christians and inspired us to draw closer to God. Some of Dan's most celebrated songs --- "Here I Am, Lord," "City of God" and "Sing a New Song" --- are from his years of collaboration with the St. Louis Jesuits. More recent collections like To Praise You and his Mass setting Mass of Christ the Savior continue to exhibit that enduring ability to reach into people's hearts, young and old, and draw them into prayer.

A Labyrinth Retreat

Every day life often finds us in a dizzy spin as we maneuver non-stop through 24-hour days! This experience will offer the luxury of time and space to stop long enough and slow down to relax and regain inner balance. The labyrinth process reminds us that each person walks individually on a sacred journey, yet we share the path to God with others! Away from the responsibilities, noise and the distractions of everyday life, you will be invited to consider what is going on inside of your soul, as well as consider the path ahead

This retreat day is an in-depth look at the lives of eight women of scripture, four from the Old Testament and four from the New Testament. We see the experiences of women from thousands of years meet our own modern day journey.

A Day of Reflection for Women

Gail enjoys celebrating the delightful story of women's spirit in all its forms, colors, and possibilities using sculpture, poetry, photography and music. She shares her wonderful collection of miniature sculptured figures, which represent many of the delightful and beautiful aspects of women's spirit flowing from the Divine light within. Her goal is to offer women an opportunity to witness and to celebrate their own preciousness. With a sense of gratitude and awe, Gail invites you to celebrate with her the fullness of what it is to be woman.