YOUR INVITATION TO REFINER'S PLAYGROUND
July 18-19, 2024
Comfort Inn &Suites
4777 North Broadway Street Boulder, CO 80304
SPACE IS LIMITED FOR THIS VENUE
Cut off day for reduced room rate: June 17, 2024
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BETWIXT AND BETWEEN
How we carry the invisible & visible
“Wisdom tells me I am nothing.
Love tells me I am everything.
In between these my life flows”
( Nisargadatta Maharaj )
Context
“A special knowing resides between the differences that thoughts have invented. Not this and not that, not here and not there, not one and not other, but in the boundless place between all distinctions. Something other than thoughts knows what thoughts cannot think. Something fills the emptiness between things and connects all differences to each other. Something says what cannot be said, hears what cannot be heard, thinks what cannot be thought, knows what cannot be known. To find what cannot be found, enter the place between everything that can be found.
“So, I attend to what’s ordinary but I also attend to what’s not ordinary. I think but I don’t think. I know but I don’t know. And this opens to a special kind of thinking and knowing. When the silence within me is not silent and the emptiness within me is not empty, then I enter the nameless place between all differences and I become one with the Great Oneness.”
( From The Sage’s Way, Ray Grigg, 2004 )
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In some eastern traditions it is understood that the greatest fear in humans is the fear of open space. Stripped of our invented identities — roles, status, owners, careers, partners/spouses, wealth, physical/mental/emotional capacity, or moving beyond conditioned ways of reacting — there is great fear of who we would be without these collective thoughts. We continue to exist even when these structures disappear. There is something beyond these distinctions. We are this something beyond.
We can be reminded of our betwixt and between condition anytime. We may be grappling with a tough issue at home or in our work. We may be facing a dilemma for which there are no immediate answers. Challenges show up, unforeseen obstacles, new opportunities wrapped in excitement and uncertainty. Sometimes we have a sense that we are not to simply react like we have in the past, yet we don’t have another option available. Sometimes as we hold these moments a new potential appears. Not exactly intuition and certainly not a result of rational analysis. It is as if another, invisible aspect of us has been witnessing us and injects light, buoyancy and wisdom that immediately shifts everything. If we can be still and remain curious.
“When you enter the world, you come to live on the threshold between the visible and invisible. You bring with you a sense of belonging to the invisible that you can never lose or finally cancel.
When you become aware of the invisible as a live background, you notice how your own body is woven around your invisible soul, how the invisible lives behind the faces of those you love, and how it is always there between you. The invisible is one of the most powerful forms of the unknown. It envelopes our every movement. It is the region out of which we emerged and the state we are destined for, yet we never see it.” (Excerpt from Eternal Echoes, John O’Donohue )
In this Summer gathering of the Refiners Playground we want to explore the betwixt and between space and how it shows up in our lives. How do we access it? What value does it offer? What experience do we have of actually living from this space, if only for short periods of time? Can we learn to relax and sink into the boundless, spaceless space and welcome it like an old friend? After all, some say this space between differences is the closest experience we have to who and what we actually are!
We expect this to be a liberating conversation between friends.
SPACE IS LIMITED. Please register and plan to join us.
WHAT IS THE REFINER'S PLAYGROUND?
We are an open community of spiritual explorers who meet on a quarterly basis to share our current learning, questions about and experiments on the nature of reality. In particular, we seek to know the True Self directly while examining all of the hilarious ways we try to be something other than this! Our two day retreats are typically attended by 18-20 people from around the country. The dialogue is rich, at times profound, always compassionate and frequently hilarious. Come as frequently as you like and stay for as long as you like.
WHAT HAPPENS IN A TYPICAL GATHERING?
We meet in groups that range from 18-20 people. We share our stories of what we understand through direct experience and/or are currently learning through our own active experiments on the nature of being. There are no long-winded speeches or dazzling intellectual discourses. We tend not to agree or disagree with each other and seldom give others advice. We have no front of the room instructors or teachers as we all serve this role. We find that when we share our experiences with one another, as co-explorers- we each become more clear and confident about taking our next steps.
WHAT WE CURRENTLY KNOW
People who most benefit from the "Playground" are those who have:
A life long yearning to know what is true about themselves and the universe.
Grown tired of the typical self-help menu with its implied assumption there is some "defect" in us that requires improvement.
Believed more licenses, degrees or certifications will leave them finally and forever feeling "enough".
Many years' experience feeling alone, judged, misunderstood and have simply grown tired of this. And even more tired at having contributed to or led the charge themselves!
If you have experience with any of the above, welcome to the club! You will likely enjoy the solid food of the "Playground". The hard truth is that no amount of suffering or achievement can satisfy the deeper longing tugging at our soul. Our secret desire is wholeness and only our essential nature knows how to weave the fragments we present it into a coherent whole. Our hard work and effort to fix ourselves usually make matters worse, or at least continues the entertainment.
There is another way.
WELCOME
You are welcomed to come for as many sessions as you like and can leave whenever you like. Regardless of how much experience you have with deeper work, you will likely find in the Refiner's Playground a quality of dialogue and loving presence unlike anything you have ever experienced before.
INVESTMENT
$695 per session (includes breakfast and lunch). $2,495 when you sign up for the next four events. A savings of $285!
Bring a family member, partner, significant other at no additional cost!
Your Trusted Guides
Jim and Dan bring a half-century of experience wading around the inner landscape of human experience in ways that result in greater light, buoyancy, presence and power. We each have our unique spiritual path. We come in not as experts or even as facilitators who speak from the front of the room but as guides who walk alongside. We're aware of the terrain but cannot predict what will happen. Hence, the focus on playful experimentation.
The Refiner's Playground is:
“Time to lay down the armaments we use to fix ourselves and to come home. There is an un-changing center within us that isn’t concerned with anything other than NOW. I often see and recognize the Essential that lurks beneath those moments we naturally resist. I speak directly to it and am learning how to move with it and allow it more play in myself and in us. I am here to usher in an intimate, liberating partnership with the Essential in each all of us! We ARE this!” - Dan Holden
The Refiner's Playground offers us:
“A unique opportunity to embrace the perfection each life experience offers in burning away the dross of our deluded self perceptions, allowing the true, infinite, essential beings that we are to find fuller creative expression now. I am here to playfully master the art of finding, mining and refining the very best in us, allowing it to creatively express itself in response to the perfect challenge or opportunity that presents itself in each moment.” - Jim Anderson