Christina-Dancing in the Mystery
My Whole Life Led Me There I went to my first Shalom retreat in February 2023. A friend told me about it, but the deeper truth is that my whole life led me there. I got sober at twenty-one and spent sixteen years in twelve-step recovery. I was deeply committed, active in service, and it […]
Rebekah-Always Curious
Still Beginning I like to ask people a question: If you didn’t know how old you were, how old would you think you are? For me, the answer comes quickly. Twenty-four. Not in a denial-of-aging kind of way. More in a there’s still so much alive in me kind of way. That’s how I feel. […]
What Came Through the Gate
Lion’s Gate Oracle Deck and Guidebook Last year, during our Lion’s Gate gathering, we worked with an oracle deck created by one of my teachers from Africa. The deck held powerful teachings for me, supported my own journey, and offered meaningful guidance to our gathering. However, it was not created specifically for the Lion’s Gate […]
The First Date
That afternoon became a beautiful reminder of what happens when women of different generations come together and begin sharing stories. A thread appears. We recognize something of ourselves in one another. Memory becomes connection, and ordinary moments that might otherwise have been forgotten become alive again through the telling. This month, rather than highlighting one […]
The Day Out of Time
The Day Between Before the Lions Gate Opens July 25 is known as the Day Out of Time, a pause between cycles where we are invited to step out of routine and reconnect with a deeper rhythm of life. This year, I am choosing to experience it as a pause between what has been quietly […]
David-An Act of Defiance
I love traveling. I would travel anywhere. This particular trip developed from a conversation I was having with some colleagues of mine. I was working in a lab at NYU, and there was a Friday happy hour that I would go to every week. For whatever reason, I wound up hanging out with all the […]
Charlie-Walking the Camino with Shalom
My name is Charlie Hammerslough. I’ve been coming to Shalom Mountain since June 9, 2011. In the winter of 2019, I walked the last seventy miles of the Camino de Santiago. I went alone. I had no question to answer, and when I began, I couldn’t name a purpose. Looking By late 2019, I was […]
Barb-All of You is Welcome Here
What’s Cooking? What’s cooking? That’s how the mat trips always began. What’s cooking? When I think about my Shalom story, I have to start with Robert Close. Robert was my minister, and we had this amazing Sunday school class that he was often leading like it was a Shalom retreat. There were a whole bunch […]
Kori-Coming Home to Love. Again and Again
Coming to Shalom I first came to Shalom when I was twenty-two years old. My uncle Doug had gone first, and when he came home, he called me. He was so excited. He kept talking about this place and these people, and he said they reminded him of me. I remember thinking he sounded almost […]
Patsy Wheatley — 90
A Gullible Story My name is Patsy Wheatley, and this is what I like to call a gullible story—one of those stories where people believe something that, when you really stop and think about it, doesn’t quite make sense. But at the time, everyone just goes along with it. My husband and I were traveling […]