In-Person and Online: Practicing Hope – An Embodied, Heart-Based Retreat
with Leslie Booker and Dara Silverman
Saturday, November 23rd & Sunday, November 24th, 2024 | 10:00am – 4:00pm ET
In-Person Location: New York Insight at 115 West 29th Street, 12th Floor
Many of us are engaged with the world as activists or organizers. But even if you don’t identify that way, you probably deeply care about the world and want to help change it. For those of us with a regular meditation or embodiment practice, we might wonder how we can align the tools we use to find ease, ground, refresh, and stay connected with our most deeply-held values. Without learning how to align our practice with our beliefs, it can start to feel like escapism. But how do we move forward?
In this two-day non-residential retreat, we’ll explore “hope” as a way through. What does it feel like to hold hope as an embodied practice in a tumultuous world? How do we cultivate love without spiritually bypassing? Is there a way to connect to our own sense of well-being and joy while remaining fully present to injustice and violence?
Join long-time friends and collaborators Booker and Dara as they weave together somatic (body-based) practices and the heart practices of the Buddha’s Brahmaviharas (expressions of love). Together we’ll cultivate these capacities in ourselves, and nurture a fuller understanding of the body and heart.
Everyone is welcome to participate, regardless of experience with meditation or body-based practices. Please wear comfortable clothes you can move in.
In-Person Registration:
Please register below. If you are able, registering at the “Supporter” level enables others to attend at the “Subsidized” level. Thank you for your generosity! (Please note that the registration price includes a base level of teacher support, and you will have the opportunity to donate more after the program.)
If you are registering via a mobile device such as a phone or tablet, you can scroll right and left and up and down within the below form if it is partially obscured or cut off.
CLICK HERE to open the registration form in a new browser window.
Online Registration:
Please register below. If you are able, registering at the “Supporter” level enables others to attend at the “Subsidized” level. Thank you for your generosity! (Please note that the registration price includes a base level of teacher support, and you will have the opportunity to donate more after the program.)
If you are registering via a mobile device such as a phone or tablet, you can scroll right and left and up and down within the below form if it is partially obscured or cut off.
CLICK HERE to open the registration form in a new browser window.
Volunteering
All of our programs rely on volunteers to support our teachers and staff with various tasks and responsibilities. Volunteering allows you to participate in our programs at no cost. To inquire about volunteering opportunities, please fill out our inquiry form, and we will get back to you as soon as possible.
Teacher(s)
Leslie Booker
Booker is a heart – centered, spirit – driven activist and meditation teacher committed to creating a culture of belonging through her teaching and writing. She completed Spirit Rock’s 4 year Retreat Teacher Training in 2020, and shared the practices of yoga and mindfulness with New York City’s most vulnerable populations for over a decade. Booker has co – authored and contributed to several publications including the trauma – informed anthology Practicing Liberation and its accompanying workbook, for folks working towards social justice. She is a co-founder of the Yoga Service Council at Omega Institute and the Meditation Working Group of Occupy Wall Street. In 2020 she was invited to be a Sojourner Truth Leadership Fellow through Auburn Seminary and was voted by her peers as one of the 12 Powerful Women in the Mindfulness Movement.
Booker moved to Philadelphia in August of 2020 to vote in a swing state, and currently serves as the Guiding Teacher of New York Insight.
W | LeslieBooker.com
IG | TheRealBookerProject
FB | LeslieBooker
Dara Silverman
Dara Silverman is a white, queer Jewish consultant, somatic coach and trainer with 25 years working with organizations and in movements for social, racial, economic and gender justice. Previously, she was the founding Director of Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) and the Executive Director of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ) in New York City.
Dara has had a meditation practice for the past 20 years. She will complete the Dedicated Practicioner Program at Spirit Rock in May 2024 and will be beginning the Community DHarma Leaders Program at Spirit Rock in January 2025. She is certified through the International Coaching Federation as a Professional Certified Coach. Dara has been studying Somatics with the Strozzi Institute and Generative Somatics since 2011. In 2013, Dara became a certified Somatic Coach and taught at the Strozzi Institute from 2017-2023. She lives on Wappinger and Lenape land in Beacon, NY where she grows nine kinds of berries.