Heartwood painting by Gwen Dirks
Heartwood Retreat
September 19 – 26, 2025
Rivendell Lodge, Bowen Island, BC
with Gwen Dirks, Mary Palm, and Peggy Allen
Express the essence of your being. Consider where you’ve been. Tell the story of how you’re being transformed.
Guided by artists and spiritual companions, we invite you to create your own unique "heartwood painting" – a symbolic expression of your life's journey and core values.
You will play the sacred roles of both storyteller and listener, as we move through a process of individual reflection, small group conversations, and larger-circle gatherings. Just like the trees in the forest, we will support and communicate with each other, and feel our interconnection.
Each participant will work on a 36-inch square canvas. No previous art experience is required.
Save the date and watch for more details!
Facilitators
Gwen Dirks
is an artist and the creator of the Heartwood process. She is a seeker of the wonder and mystery that is God and is sensitive to the Spirit in herself and others. Creating and walking; self inquiry and reading; community and solitude; She believes everything in the earthiness of life becomes an entry way into God’s love. Gwen offers spiritual accompaniment. She completed the Pacific Jubilee SoulGuiding program in 2022 and the SoulMentoring program in 2025.
Mary Palm
has a background as a teacher, but she is a student of life. She is a spiritual independent, trained in the sacred listening arts of spiritual accompaniment and grief companioning. Mindfully gardening, hiking, skiing, and focusing on all the wonder around her through photography, her biggest mentor is Mother Nature.
Reading and writing poetry, singing, and dabbling in other art forms, allows for expression of, and connection to, the common human experience. This, along with her deep, extensive life journey with personal loss, has opened her to new levels of interaction with others, and with Spirit. Mary offers spiritual accompaniment and facilitates grief journey groups.
Peggy Allen
completed the Pacific Jubilee SoulGuiding Program in 2022 and finds joy and meaning in companioning herself and others into deeper union with the Divine, however we each experience that movement. Rooted in the Mystical Tradition, meditation and contemplation are trusted allies into spaciousness and acceptance of Life on its terms. Perhaps her most potent teacher has been grief and loss and the love that has risen in the doorway of this threshold. Through the creative processes of listening, gardening, soul collage, writing, and ritual, she is finding her way into easeful presence.