9-11 October 2026
A residential retreat in the Drome region of France, taught in French and English
Email Manoelle manomiccia@yahoo.fr to reserve your place. More information here
‘By experiencing the creation story as our own personal story, we have the same opportunity to re-create and renew ourselves, as our ancestors did, and to find a deeper connection with the divine in our everyday lives.’ p.1
The retreat will focus on chants, body prayers, meditations and breath practices inspired by the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew bible, and also explores the relationship between those texts and some of the teachings of Jesus and the early Christians. The quotations here are drawn from the book ‘The Genesis Meditations’ by Neil Douglas-Klotz, which provides the inspiration for this retreat.
Neil Douglas-Klotz ‘proposes that the original meditation of many early Christians, and possibly Jesus himself, was not primarily on an apocalyptic or cataclysmic ending. Instead it focused on the life-affirming, love-filled, creative beginning described in Genesis and the Hebrew scriptures. Jesus was not looking for the proverbial “Apocalypse Now!” to bring history crashing to a close. Instead he tried to reorient his listeners to the power of divine creation through the experience of “Genesis Now!” p.1-2
‘I believe that the actual practice of this meditation can prove just as relevant today as it was two thousand years ago, when people started to write it down in Jesus’s time. It shows us an immanent rather than a detached divinity. It cultivates a sense of wholeness as opposed to separation. It can build a bridge of peace between the three religions of the Middle East. It can affirm a radically different view of life in a world that looks to save its ecosystem and rediscover an authentic connection to the sacred.’ p.2
‘…the original story… brought people together and taught them, not historical fact, but something even more important: how to live with compassion for themselves, each other, and the world around them. When we look at life as an unfolding, ever renewing beginning, rather than a fixed, ideal end result, we can also begin to feel respect toward those who went before us and feel responsibility toward those who come after us. We can feel that while the Earth cannot provide everything that our desires demand, it can provide enough to go around. In other words, we shift our sense of freedom from the freedom to have to the freedom to become.’ p.6
‘the Original Meditation… involved practitioners in a kinaesthetic experience that in various ways used the awareness of breathing, sound, and movement as a way to reconnect with the power and authority of the Holy One. It allowed practitioners of the Original Meditation in its various forms to “return” (the Hebrew-Aramaic notion of the word repent) to right timing and rhythm with the sacred realm. This return would empower the reign of the divine (the “king/queendom,” in Jesus’ words) to break through from past to present and affect everything now.’ p. 107
Jilani is a Ruhaniat Sufi Guide and a mentor with the Dances of Universal Peace. Neil Douglas-Klotz (Saadi) has published many books and created cycles of dance-music-meditations based on his work with translating fundamental texts Jilani trained with from 2007-2010 and since then has travelled widely, bringing his inspirational work to an international audience, with his support.
