Join Vishwam and friends for a magical weekend exploring the very Heart Of Writing. You will experience simple yet powerful heart meditations and writing practices to help develop your unique voice. Whether you write to publish or simply for yourself, you are warmly welcome to join this friendly community of writers.
The retreat programme will be spacious and peaceful with optional heart meditation & Heart Flow Yoga before breakfast, meditative writing sessions in the mornings and afternoons, time to share your writing if you wish, and a peaceful heart meditation before bed. You will also have time to exploring the grounds, getting to know each other better or having quiet contemplative time to yourself.
Heart Of Writing
“Beneath memory and experience, beneath imagination and invention, beneath words, there are rhythms to which memory and imagination and words all move; and the writer’s job is to go down deep enough to begin to feel that rhythm, to find it, move to it, be moved by it, and let it move memory and imagination to find words.”
Le Guin describes beautifully how Heart Of Writing helps us tune into the rhythms that underlay memory, imagination and words. Through shared heart meditation, we connect with the ‘Wave in the Heart,’ the rhythm that is silent and yet sings. Every spiritual tradition talks about the heart. This isn’t the emotional or physical heart, but the spiritual heart centre. Here, we have the opportunity to experience it directly for ourselves.
Wysing Arts Centre
Our home for the Wave in the Heart retreat will be this beautiful Grade II listed farmhouse on the 11-acre rural site of Wysing Arts Centre.
Set amongst beautiful, natural scenery, Wysing's farmhouse usually hosts artists who are on residencies or retreats and the house itself features a number of artworks from artists affiliated with Wysing over the years.
You can find out more about this progressive, imaginative art centre which empowers creative practice and compassionate connection by clicking here.
Wysing Arts Centre is located outside the village of Bourn, ten miles west of Cambridge. Click here for more information on transport links. We are happy to help coordinate potential lift shares in taxis or private cars from Bourn or other areas. For those who enjoy walking, it’s less than a mile from the nearest bus stop to Wysing.
Exchange
All places are offered on a sliding scale to make the retreat as accessible as possible.
Rooms are offered on a first come, first served basis.
Places are extremely limited and early booking is highly advised. Please note there are only two private double rooms, one private single room, one twin room and one shared room.
To help keep prices down, we ask everyone to bring either a veggie currie dish or veggie pasta dish for our shared evening meals. All other meals will be prepared by teams of volunteers (that’s us!). Cooking together can be one of the highlights of the retreat experience. There’s nothing like chatting while chopping carrots.
If you have any special dietary requirements, please let us know and we’ll do our best to accommodate. Do bring any special foods you may need for the weekend.
About your Host
Brother Vishwam Gurudas Heckert is a Heart Of Writing facilitator and Heart Of Living Yoga minister, yoga teacher and teacher trainer based in the Shetland Islands. His PhD in Sociology (University of Edinburgh, 2005) is a unique look at social movement, identity and the power of listening.
Vishwam’s essays, articles poems, and stories have been published in various books, journals and websites over the past 25 years. Vishwam has been sharing Heart Of Writing practices for over 5 years now and is continually amazed at how it support the rhythm, structure and depth of writing to blossom and evolve. He’s known for his gentleness, humour and kindness.