Hope, Alaska
And there's still time for your input for 2026.
Dear Friends,
As much as I regret doing so, I am postponing this week’s promised meditation on hope. I have been battling a head cold for two days, muddled mind and all, and I want to sit with this essay longer to flesh out what is emerging.
Or, to echo Meister Eckhart,1
I need to be silent for a while; words are forming in my heart.
For now, I wish to express my gratitude for your generous response to last week’s letter, “On Becoming a Shared Work.” Thank you.
I did discover that some email replies with your input did not make it to me. If you replied to last week’s email and did not receive a response from me, it is because your email is whirling in the ethers—not in my inbox and not in my “junk” folder either. Also, if you have not yet responded but wish to share your reflections as we co-imagine the year ahead, please do so. It is not too late.
This time, dear Friends, please email me directly, not by reply from this email: reneeeliphd [AT] gmail [DOT] com.
Some possibilities include:
– Living in Hope, an online weekend retreat, indwelling hope as a forward-facing force, ever-present and always already here, to which we can turn in the darkest hour, even in the grip of despair (Spring 2026)
– An onsite pilgrimage steeped in listening presence to the Silence in the desert, where Silence is most deep, recognizing that it is in listening through the “ear of the heart” that we hear what cannot be spoken (TBD)
– A longer-form online phenomenological (lived experience) study on the unfolding of consciousness at this epochal threshold, drawing from Jean Gebser’s Ever-Present Origin, and culminating in an in-person retreat (TBD)
– A new cohort of Awakening to the Heart, and/or an opportunity for prior participants to revisit and deepen the work (TBD)
If other possibilities are coming to you, please do share. This is an occasion for imagining together.
Importantly, interest is growing in the Gatherings in Silence, which speaks to what is forming here and prompts perhaps the formation of a new circle and gathering time. If you are interested in joining a Gathering in Silence, please do let me know.
I’ll be back next week with another meditation on hope, this time, calling upon Paul Celan’s poem, “Komm,” written while in the throes of despair.
I leave you with an image that came while I was driving through Hope, Alaska, on the upper Kenai Peninsula, while on pilgrimage. I was awestruck by the snowy peaks and snowy white-capped flowers, opening, like hope, to the ever-present possibility of what is not yet.
Ever in gratitude,
Renée
All Beyond the Comfort Zone letters and essays will always be free. Paid subscriptions and donations provide financial support for this publication and make it possible to keep all offerings accessible to everyone.
If you have the financial means to support this work, please consider offering a financial contribution today, with my deepest gratitude to you.
Notes & References
This reflection is often attributed to Meister Eckhart. I do not have the citation.
Feel better, Renee!
Hope you feel better, my friend.