Sadly, the retreat at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center has been cancelled due to Covid.
Instead you might like to consider:
heARTmind ALASKA (Aug 18-21)
heARTmind ONLINE (July 10)
“heARTmind provided a space for me to play, create and discover my creative voice. It has provided a safe place for my creative voice to emerge and find its unique self-expression.”
—Alysia T
“I now have a clearer vision of my art practice as one of the ways that I practice my spiritual path.”
—Claire D
“I’ve been taking Suiko’s retreats and programs since 2016. Suiko’s natural grace, ease, and wisdom have always nurtured me.”
—Nancy C
“heARTmind reignited my art practice. It gave me enthusiasm, inspiration, and ideas for making. I am more confident in my making and my identity as an art maker. I’ve formed amazing friendships and community around making. I’ve deepened into my understanding of what it means to make, why it matters, and possibilities of how to create community around it.”
—Shenandoah W
“heARTmind allowed me to trust my instincts and manifest my ideas into something tangible and not to question the validity of my impulses so much.”
—Mary W
Have you experienced self-doubt in your creative practice?
(Who hasn’t?)How does your creative practice relate to your spiritual practice?
What would happen if these two paths were united in your life?
Explore the mountains and rivers of creativity as illuminated by the clear and bright heartmind
with Artist / Founder / Abbess of the Art Monastery Suiko Betsy McCall & Artist / Poet / Activist / Zen Teacher Qayyum Johnson.
In this workshop you will learn to
- bridge your creative making with your spiritual practice,
- meditate while engaging in various forms of creative expression, and
- befriend your Inner Critic.
“Suiko’s enthusiasm, thoughtful insight, glowing personality, willingness to flow, and gentle leadership are the what made this class amazing for me.”
—Sherri M
“Suiko is recreating the dharmasphere and inviting the Divine Jester to be part of the inquiry. There have been too many centuries of denial, seclusion, and a denigration of the muse. By bringing the arts and dharma together she is validating two fundamental aspects of people.”
—Kasha B.
Your hosts for this retreat are husband-and-wife team Qayyum Johnson and Suiko Betsy McCall.
Suiko is the Founder & Abbess of the Art Monastery, a visual artist, and lived at Green Gulch Farm / San Francisco Zen Center for four years.
Qayyum is Co-Director of the Art Monastery, is a poet, visual artist, and activist. He lived at Green Gulch Farm / San Francisco Zen Center for 12 years.
Retreat leader bios...
Suiko Betsy McCall brings her experience as a competitive synchronized swimmer, professional knitter, and founder of the Art Monastery Project to inform her visual art and her retreat hosting. Garnering degrees from Yale University and San Francisco Art Institute, Suiko’s paintings have been exhibited from San Francisco and New York to Amsterdam and Rome.
In 2013, she co-authored and illustrated the book, “Hosting Transformation: Stories from the Edge of Changemaking”. In 2017, she authored and illustrated the workbook, “Live Your Dream. Start Here. Start Now.” Her paintings have been published in International Interiors Magazine, Leaping Clear Literary Magazine, and on the cover of Cream City Review.
She is the Founder and Abbess of the Art Monastery, an arts organization dedicated to cultivating personal awakening and cultural transformation through artmaking, spiritual practice, and reciprocal relationship with the earth. An American non-profit, the Art Monastery is one of the founding organizations in the International Partnership for Transformative Learning / Transformation Hosts International (hostingtransformation.eu). Suiko lived at the Art Monastery in its various locations throughout Italy for seven years and Art Monastery Vermont for five years. She lived at Green Gulch Farm / Green Dragon Zen Temple in California for four years. Suiko now lives on the ancestral land of the Kanaka Maoli, on the Big Island of Hawai’i.
Qayyum Johnson was raised in an American Sufi family. After wandering pilgrimage he received a degree in Religious Studies and, after a short trip to Japan, moved to Green Gulch Farm Zen Center in Muir Beach, CA, in 2006. Qayyum served as Shuso (Head Student) in 2015 with Abbess Fu Schroeder, as well as being Farm Manager of Green Gulch for many years. Most recently he has been co-director of the Art Monastery in Vermont, where he also performed volunteer hospice work, began a sitting group in prison, renovated old homes and worked for the post office as a letter carrier. He is keenly interested in how zazen (seated meditation) allows us to embrace the vast relational inter-being that defines our lives and discover grace amidst the uneasiness of creative self-expression.
July 10, 2022
via Zoom
sliding scale $40-$160
Register at SFZC
“heARTmind reignited my art practice. It gave me enthusiasm, inspiration, and ideas for making. I am more confident in my making and my identity as an art maker. I’ve formed amazing friendships and community around making. I’ve deepened into my understanding of what it means to make, why it matters, and possibilities of how to create community around it.”
—Shenandoah W
“heARTmind allowed me to trust my instincts and manifest my ideas into something tangible and not to question the validity of my impulses so much.”
—Mary W
Have you experienced self-doubt in your creative practice?
(Who hasn’t?)How does your creative practice relate to your spiritual practice?
What would happen if these two paths were united in your life?
Have you experienced self-doubt in your creative practice?
(Who hasn’t?)How does your creative practice relate to your spiritual practice?
What would happen if these two paths were united in your life?
Explore the mountains and rivers of creativity as illuminated by the clear and bright heartmind
with Artist / Founder / Abbess of the Art Monastery Suiko Betsy McCall & Artist / Poet / Activist / Zen Teacher Qayyum Johnson.
In this workshop you will learn to
- bridge your creative making with your spiritual practice,
- meditate while engaging in various forms of creative expression, and
- befriend your Inner Critic.
“Suiko’s enthusiasm, thoughtful insight, glowing personality, willingness to flow, and gentle leadership are the what made this class amazing for me.”
—Sherri M
“Suiko is recreating the dharmasphere and inviting the Divine Jester to be part of the inquiry. There have been too many centuries of denial, seclusion, and a denigration of the muse. By bringing the arts and dharma together she is validating two fundamental aspects of people.”
—Kasha B.
Your hosts for this retreat are husband-and-wife team Qayyum Johnson and Suiko Betsy McCall.
Suiko is the Founder & Abbess of the Art Monastery, a visual artist, and lived at Green Gulch Farm / San Francisco Zen Center for four years.
Qayyum is Co-Director of the Art Monastery, is a poet, visual artist, and activist. He lived at Green Gulch Farm / San Francisco Zen Center for 12 years.
Suiko Betsy McCall brings her experience as a competitive synchronized swimmer, professional knitter, and founder of the Art Monastery Project to inform her visual art and her retreat hosting. Garnering degrees from Yale University and San Francisco Art Institute, Suiko’s paintings have been exhibited from San Francisco and New York to Amsterdam and Rome.
In 2013, she co-authored and illustrated the book, “Hosting Transformation: Stories from the Edge of Changemaking”. In 2017, she authored and illustrated the workbook, “Live Your Dream. Start Here. Start Now.” Her paintings have been published in International Interiors Magazine, Leaping Clear Literary Magazine, and on the cover of Cream City Review.
She is the Founder and Abbess of the Art Monastery, an arts organization dedicated to cultivating personal awakening and cultural transformation through artmaking, spiritual practice, and reciprocal relationship with the earth. An American non-profit, the Art Monastery is one of the founding organizations in the International Partnership for Transformative Learning / Transformation Hosts International (hostingtransformation.eu). Suiko lived at the Art Monastery in its various locations throughout Italy for seven years and Art Monastery Vermont for five years. She lived at Green Gulch Farm / Green Dragon Zen Temple in California for four years. Suiko now lives on the ancestral land of the Kanaka Maoli, on the Big Island of Hawai’i.
Qayyum Johnson was raised in an American Sufi family. After wandering pilgrimage he received a degree in Religious Studies and, after a short trip to Japan, moved to Green Gulch Farm Zen Center in Muir Beach, CA, in 2006. Qayyum served as Shuso (Head Student) in 2015 with Abbess Fu Schroeder, as well as being Farm Manager of Green Gulch for many years. Most recently he has been co-director of the Art Monastery in Vermont, where he also performed volunteer hospice work, began a sitting group in prison, renovated old homes and worked for the post office as a letter carrier. He is keenly interested in how zazen (seated meditation) allows us to embrace the vast relational inter-being that defines our lives and discover grace amidst the uneasiness of creative self-expression.
