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This in-depth training, originally created and taught by IP co-founder Cynthia Winton-Henry, brings together spiritual leaders from different traditions and paths to explore body wisdom and creativity for personal and group spiritual life.

A unique feature of this program is the opportunity to be led by Carolyn Renée Morris and Cassandra Sagan. Both veteran InterPlay Leaders bring unique gifts to this work. Carolyn Renée is a Reiki Master therapist/teacher, wellness consultant/teaching artist and co-liaison to InterPlay’s BIPOC community. Cassandra Sagan is a maggid—a Jewish storyteller/teacher/preacher—poet, songwriter, and visual artist who employs InterPlay in training educators to create story, play, and movement centered classrooms.

The program supports participants to:

• Embody self-reflection, care and feeding of the spirit, ritual, and celebration.
• Deepen spiritual practice to access more spontaneity and creativity.
• Cultivate tools for deepening play, community, and connection.
• Play with problems instead of “working” on them.
• Embrace challenges as initiations.
• Develop courage and compassion in times of uncertainty.
• “Have” your experience, even when you can’t articulate it.
• Make peace with discomfort.
• Learn tools for connecting in our new hybrid reality.
• Affirm the body's intrinsic creative intelligence.
• Honor personal connection to Spirit and Mystery.
• Reclaim a path of joy and play in a reflective community.

Why Body Wisdom?

Everything we need to know is in our bone marrow, our kishkes (guts)—our bodies. Physicality is basic because all experiences take place within the mind/body/heart/spirit. Whenever bodies gather, a “group body” forms, and as spiritual leaders it is imperative that we are in-tune with this dynamic. Further, the communities that many spiritual leaders are entrusted to nurture, all have one thing in common—their physicality.

Great transformation is possible as we align ourselves through spiritual practice. Our bodies know instinctively how to honor and affirm each person as unique as well as part of a distinct community. When we acknowledge our body wisdom, and heed its messages, we honor the soul.

Gifts of this Program

• Reclaim our birthright practices of voice, movement, stillness, and story.
• Connect to self, others, and the Divine.
• Build a community that empowers marginalized people.
• Deepen connection with Earth, People, and Spirit.
• Practice resiliency.
• Trust improvisational skills for working with complex situations.
• Take risks with new forms of speaking and presenting.
• Bring artful ritual to one-to-one, small and large groups.
• Cultivate inter-generational bonds among children, youth, and adults.

AND PLAY!

Why Creativity for Spiritual Intelligence?

Every form of creative expression provides a unique path of revelation and healing. Our full spiritual inheritance is enlivened when we engage our birthright practices: movement, voice, story, stillness, as well as visual, musical, written and spatial arts. InterPlay brings all of these folk arts back into community life in personal and joyful ways.

The Process

Opening Retreat: Secrets of InterPlay for Spiritual Intelligence: Body, Mind, Heart, Spirit This event is not required.

Take time out to explore creative practices and body wisdom teachings. We'll quickly enter elegant moments of movement, voice, story, and stillness. Learn tools to access the wisdom of the body: Easy Focus, Body Data/Knowledge/Wisdom, Internal Authority, Physicality of Grace, Exformation, Spiritual Disciplines, Incrementality, and Affirmation. Deepen your exploration into the grace, ease, and spontaneous health that arises when body and soul yield their unbelievable beauty.

6 Wisdom Teachings: The January 2022 Secrets of InterPlay Spiritual Leaders Retreat is followed by a series of online wisdom teachings and focus sessions. Deepen your bodyspirit wisdom and become a body intellectual!

Closing Retreat: “Collective Peace-making and Ritual” Having formed bonds of play and deep story, we discover new vistas for creativity in communal life. This retreat culminates with a graduation celebration.

Schedule: All times Pacific Time (PT)

6 Wisdom Teachings:
Fridays, 2/4, 2/25, 3/18, 2022, 9:00 am-noon PT
Sundays, 2/13, 3/6, 3/27, 2022, 2:00 pm-5:00 pm PT

Closing Retreat: April 2024? from 9:30 am–noon & 1:30–4:00 PT

Repeating the Program: Anyone who has previously completed the Life Practice Program is eligible for the $1,000 repeaters rate.

Financial Assistance
Based on our commitment to Racial Equity and Transformation (read our statement here...) and our understanding of the structural and personal inequalities that exist, Body Wisdom is committed to making our programs financially accessible. Financial considerations need not be a barrier to your participation. Financial support and flexible payment plans are available. Please email info@interplay.org (or call 510/465-2797), or feel free to speak to one of the leaders of this program.

Life Practice Program Attendance
Community building is an integral part of the InterPlay system. To experience the most out of a Secrets of InterPlay weekend or the Life Practice Program, we recommend that you attend all of the sessions. This immersion program into the forms and tools of InterPlay is most effective when the group can stay together over time. If you are considering becoming an InterPlay leader, participation and attendance for the full program, including attending a Secrets of InterPlay weekend, will be necessary to complete the Life Practice Program, which is the first step in becoming a certified InterPlay leader. If you have questions about this please visit: InterPlay Leader Training Program.

Continuing Education Credit
55 CE credits (18 for the Secrets of InterPlay Opening Retreat) for various healthcare and allied healthcare professions are available for those practicing throughout the U.S. and for educators only practicing in Illinois. CE pre-registration is required before the start of your event. Email Jane at interplaychicago@sbcglobal.net to APPLY for CEUs. There is a charge of $25-$40 per program. CEUs are offered through Continuing Education Institute of Illinois or R. Cassidy Seminars.

Online Information Sessions TBD.

Email ORGANIZER for more information.

Frequently Unasked Questions about InterPlay for Spiritual Leaders.