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  Celts
  P. O. Box 17
  Petoskey, MI 49770

email Seamus at
celticbodyprayers@yahoo.com

I am grateful for life,
for living in this beautiful place,
for the gift of doing the work I love.

This new year brought my wife Terri and I into a close brush with death, one wintry eve driving away in our Ford Ranger, winding through “the mountains of Wolverine” Michigan, hitting black ice and sliding across the road, tumbling our truck over head-to-toe in the snow.  We are here, alive and well, still appreciating it all.

That night we were driving our furniture to our “new” winter home - actually a very old school house built on top of a hill.  The “School on the Hill” was once the hub of life for a thriving timber community.  We are now the last plowed home on Ford road, a quiet place surrounded by pine and spruce forest, wildlife and wetlands.  You can still feel the 100 years plus of living here in the cedar-beamed great room; the place where children gathered for their lessons sometime after the Civil War, and where town folks met to make “big decisions” as the 19th century faded into the 20th.  Sitting in the rocker on our front porch we take this all in, looking out over the forest, the beautiful forest stretching back to Johnson’s creek where the pines grow tall in the snow, where elk occasionally wander.  We are grateful for living in this beautiful place.

TWO BEAUTIFUL RETREAT SITES  Now the “School on the Hill” on the mainland joins hands with Tara’s Meadow, Beaver Island, as another a place to offer retreats.  Both places are magic, blending the beauty of landscape with a deep history of community.  In the summers on Beaver Island, and now during Fall-Spring on the mainland, I can continue with my work of welcoming and comforting folks, offering them solitude and beauty in nature, kindness, gentle movement meditations, and new learning of the spirit.  I am grateful for this gift of the work I love.  I am grateful for these two enchanted places to share.

TARA’S MEADOW ADVENTURES WEEK AUG 23 - SEPT 1  Come join us for up to ten wonderful days of events and adventures on Beaver Island, during the last week of August 2008. We are offering some exceptional opportunities with talented presenters this year! A variety of choices await you, including both small group workshops and individualized solo retreats.  You can pick from several different 3-hour workshops; seek skilled assistance for crafting your solo wilderness retreat; or join us for our famous Labor Day Weekend group pilgrimage.  You pick your times, the challenge, the topics and the workshop leaders who excite you. Register soon to reserve your space.  Just click on “Retreats/Community” for a complete program of events for “Tara’s Meadow Adventures Week,” plus a description of this year’s Labor Day Weekend Pilgrimage: “Compass of the Spirit: Which Way to Wholeness?”  Click on “Meet the People” to get acquainted with this year’s talented presenters.

 

Celtic Body Prayers Celtic Body Prayers® offer us a fresh new path for restoring balance in our lives.  Utilizing gentle movement-meditations, ecology and verse, shamanic healing and the deep wells of native and contemporary wisdom, the Body Prayers® Arts can help us cultivate our bodies, minds and spirits together in one graceful daily practice. First Introduced by Seamus Mullin-Norgaard in 1995 and featured prominently in his annual Beaver Island, Michigan retreat, Celtic Body Prayers® is a unique, healthful exercise and meditation art.  Utilizing recited sacred earth poetry, Celtic Body Prayers® is a new approach to balancing body with gentle exercise, mind with meditation and spirit with prayer.  By once again giving voice and movement to the ancient poetry of the heavens, the elements and Creation, Celtic Body Prayers® offers us a rich new daily practice for celebrating the health and beauty of ourselves and our environment. Body Prayers® are unique for their wide breath of resources and cultural inspirations.  Seamus has skillfully blended his background in contemporary ecology (M.S. in environmental studies) and the movement meditation arts (yoga, T'ai Chi, Qi Gong), along with the sacred wisdoms traditions of the diverse cultures he has studied or lived amongst (notably the Native Irish and Native Americans).  In Body Prayers® the breadth of knowledge and respect for the global traditions is inclusive rather than exclusive, honoring Christianity, Buddhism, Native American Spirituality, and most notably the Sacred Earth Ways of the Celts.  Drawing from these diverse backgrounds Seamus is able to tailor a healthful daily practice of movement meditations, exercise and spiritual affirmations sensitive to a wide range of beliefs and backgrounds.    Come explore the Celtic Body Prayers® Arts for a new ecology of health, grace, and spirit. Celtic Body Prayers® movements, based on nature's creatures, mysteries, elements and plants, include... The Deer's Cry - a simple, graceful morning prayer based on St. Patrick's Lorica. The Wizard's Dance - sheer poetry in motion, a slow dance that breathes shape and fire into the ancient Song of Amergin. The Tree Lorica - A gentle exercise of one's legs, back and trunk involving the spirit of the trees. Please, feel free to investigate our website thoroughly and to tell your friends about us.  Check out when and where Seamus will be holding future workshops by clicking the Workshops/Services link below.  For more information on our Retreats and Community building activities click on the Retreats/Community link, also below. Peace and blessings.