How do you really want to live? Answering this question involves listening to your soul's longing for sanctuary. Modern times crowd us with new and unexpected threats. In response, we race for solid ground hoping for security. Yet the moment we think we've found a safe neighborhood, school, diet, relationship, or investment, some unforeseen event rips the rug from beneath our feet. Scrambling to make sense of instability, our minds grasp for a grid of understanding, a mental map that will outline what is happening and calm our worries. But every attempt to clarify and control our circumstances is swept away by the relentless tide of change. Tony Lawlor, an award winning architect, has spent over 20 years helping clients create personal sanctuary. In this workshop, he employs step by step methods to set you on a course of self discovery that makes this weekend practical as well as inspirational. He offers techniques and insight that allow us to find peace and vital harmony within the shifting terrain of daily life. This workshop grew out of Tony's lifetime search for genuine, workable sanctuary. As an architect seeking stability in physical structures, he learned that beautiful, sacred places don't protect us from the relentless whirlpool of change , aging, illness, divorce, financial ups and downs, and death , over which we fear and grieve. As he turned to transcendence for refuge, he hoped to dwell in a spiritual consciousness beyond change, but found that silence disconnected from the dynamic interplay of living was numb and isolating. As he experienced his own dark night of the soul, he came to understand that true sanctuary can only be found by embracing the currents of change. We must learn to navigate the realm where spirit flows into matter and matter dissolves into spirit, where dissolution flows into creation, sensing and acting in ways that find safety, richness, and delight within transformation In this workshop, we'll identify the patterns of change that disrupt our daily lives and discover our personal relationships to them. We will experience ways of allowing change itself to become the architect of a new kind of safety and security.
Anthony Lawlor is author of A Home for the Soul: A Guide to Dwelling with Spirit and Imagination and The Temple in the House: Finding the Sacred in Everyday Architecture. Tony lectures and conducts workshops nationwide on spirituality in architecture; his work has been featured on Oprah, National Public Radio, and numerous other television, radio, and print media. He is currently writing a non architecture oriented book that addresses the human dynamics of seeking sanctuary within a constantly changing world. We look forward to his latest thought provoking ideas on his return to Rowe.