That Mysterious Silence – 10 Years at the Centre

Dr Stefan Gillow Reynolds is author of ‘Living with the Mind of Christ: Mindfulness in Christian Spirituality’ (DLT, 2016) and ‘The Wisdom of Love in the Song of Songs’ (Hikari, 2018) and ‘Letting Go and Coming Home: A Year of Poetry and Photos’ (Hikari, 2021). He has a PhD in Christian Spirituality from London University and runs retreats for The World Community for Christian Meditation and for the Cistercian Abbey of Mount Melleray where he works. He lives with his wife in Lismore, Co. Waterford.

Lucy Barnes is a dancer and British Wheel qualified yoga teacher, working in the WCCM community.  She is currently interested in Feldenkrais technique and T’ai Chi, both of which influence her teaching approach. Lucy has run classes and workshops at the Meditatio Centre for several years as well as running a private practice in London.

Lennie Charles has been performing music and poetry events from the works of classic mystic poets such as Rumi, Kahill Gibran , Lao Tzu , Omar Khayyam and Kabir to name a few, to local audiences for number of years. A Classical and Middle Eastern multi-instrumentalist and a big fan of BBC Radio’s “Words & Music” He wanted to bring that listening experience to a live audience. The music is often improvised and poems read twice, lines repeated and may also re-read against another poem. Poems he says need to be read and listened too twice sometimes, one for the head and again for the heart.

Laurence Freeman is a monk of the Benedictine Congregation of Monte Oliveto. He is the Director of Bonnevaux and of The World Community for Christian Meditation.

Mark S. Burrows is an award-winning poet, translator, and scholar. An historian of medieval Christianity, he is a much sought-after speaker and retreat leader in the US and Europe. A past president of the Society for the Study of Christian Spirituality, his work explores the intersections of spirituality and theology, poetry and the arts. Together with Jon Sweeney, he has published three books of meditative poems inspired by Meister Eckhart’s writings, most recently Meister Eckhart’s Book of Darkness and Light, which was awarded the Gold Medal by the Nautilus Book Awards in 2024. He is also an award-winning translator of German poetry with publications that include his translation of Rainer Maria Rilke’s Prayers of a Young Poet and a new translation of his Sonnets to Orpheus (June, 2024). He lives and writes in Camden, ME. www.soul-in-sight.org