This is a working retreat at which artists, creatives, practitioners and all manner of refugees from religion walk, work and eat alongside each other.

Together we will explore the nexus of spirituality, creative practice, community engagement and systemic change.

Breathe in. Receive. / Breathe out. Create

You will create photo essays and Story Walks*

*A Story Walk is a 20-minute walk punctuated by several way markers, poetic engagements with the environment. Poetic engagements direct attention; they attend to beauty, possibility and a re-imagined ecology of meaning. They ask "What do I see that you should see?" and at the same time, "What do you see that I should see?" Story Walks could be described as an urban hack of a celtic labyrinth, or a Japanese garden in the streets.

You will listen, learn and create alongside:

• twenty other local artists and creatives
• visiting US and Canadian academic-practitioners
• five visiting Japanese artists

You will be part of an ongoing cohort of fellow practitioners engaging in place through art.

You will participte in public dialogues with neighbourhood cultural leaders.

You will be working with garden-like sensibilities, rhythms and timelines. You won't be working with factory-like sensibilities, rhythms and timelines. We promise.

Given the deep social crisis that we now face, the initiative taken by The School of Poets and Prophets in undertaking the Urban un-Seminary is exactly the right move at the right time. Such an offer is an invitation to think and act “outside the box,” a move that is now surely required by the Gospel. I am encouraged by this imaginative undertaking and will hope from it important spin-offs for the life of the church and for our society.

~ Walter Brueggemann. Theologian and scholar. Author of "The Prophetic Imagination."

“Soul Sustainability” conjures images of our interior wells being rehydrated so that grace flows through us into relationships and neighbourhoods. How encouraging for all of us to witness renewing creativity as it springs forth from Fukushima, Vancouver, and all the ends of our precious earth. And, also, how very right that the artists who do so much to sustain the souls of the rest of us, have this opportunity for replenishment during a weekend of conversation, listening and poetic engagement.

~Susan S. Phillips. Executive Director and Professor, New College Berkeley. Author of "The Cultivated Life: From Ceaseless Striving to Receiving Joy"