Sacred Noticing is about what you leave in other people, which is not something you can watch happen on your own. Most people begin with others long before they start anything themselves.
Five ways in, in order of how much you have to hold. Any of them is a real beginning — the last one is not the goal, just the far end.
1. Come to the monthly Gathering
Online, the first Tuesday of the month. An hour, no preparation, nothing asked of you. Somebody else holds the room and you can leave your camera off. This is the easiest way to find out what the practice actually feels like.
2. Come to a retreat
A day or a weekend, usually at San Damiano in Danville, California. Still somebody else’s room, but with enough time for the practice to settle rather than just be described. Dates are announced in the weekly reflections and on the schedule.
3. Bring one evening to a group you are already in
This is the one most people take, and it asks the least. You do not start anything — you contribute a single evening to something that already meets. A book club, a fraternity, a parish formation night, a small group of friends.
There is a gathering written to be used exactly this way. It runs for thirty-five minutes, needs two or three people, and everything you have to say is printed on the page. You do not need the book to run it.
Read Gathering One → · download the printable version (PDF)
4. Run the six with that group
If the first evening goes well, there are five more. One a month, in the order the book builds them — the trace we leave, what distorts it, the common good, the method itself, the thresholds in an ordinary day, and finally the people you sit next to every month.
5. Start a group of your own
Three people, one copy of the book, and an hour. That is the whole requirement. You do not need a fraternity, a parish, a retreat house, a budget, or permission from anybody, and you certainly do not need to have mastered any of this first.
Everything you would need is free to download, copy and change. It is one account of how these gatherings have actually been run — not the correct version, and not a programme to follow. Take it as somewhere to start and then do it your own way.
Start Here — what kind of evening this is, and what you actually have to do →
Encountering Sacred Noticing — the free pack →
If you run something and it goes somewhere the written version did not, I would like to hear about it — mcunningham@spiritualbreak.com.