One in Mind One in Heart – A Meditation and Lifestyle Retreat for young Adults

Giovanni Felicioni is the Associate Director of Bonnevaux Centre for Peace, the international home of the WCCM. He has been involved with the WCCM since its inception, serves on its Guiding Board and is a Benedictine Oblate. Before his role at Bonnevaux, Giovanni’s professional career spanned 30 years as a bodyworker, movement instructor and therapist in London and Europe. He studied yoga with visionary and pioneer Mary Stewart (Vanda Scaravelli) and regularly taught on her London-based Yoga Teacher Training. He is a certified Advanced RolferR, a Rolf Movement™ practitioner and has served on the faculty of the Rolf Institute since 2000. Giovanni taught for Independent Dance, founded in London by Siobhan Davies, Gill Clarke and Fiona Milward. He taught the Masters in Creative Practice at Trinity Laban, run by Independent Dance and Siobhan Davies Dance. He was also a contributor at the PAL, Movement and Meaning laboratories, founded by Gill Clark and Susan Benn. In 2012 He founded the British Academy of Rolfing in London. Most importantly, these 30 years of personal research into the relationship between touch, movement, awareness and contemplation led him to over two decades of study with movement scientist Hubert Godard during Hubert's development of Tonic Function Theory.

Taynã is a WCCM oblate and International Coordinator of Meditation for Young people. She started her work in the community with a meditation project with children. She graduated in Social Communication with a master’s degree in Social Psychology. Taynã is 38 years old and has two daughters (2 and 8 years old). Christian meditation was the path I found on my spiritual journey responsible for deepening my Christian faith through the experience of being with God in silence. Bonnevaux is an oasis of peace in a world marked by distractions. Living in the atmosphere of Bonnevaux allows us to look at our current lifestyle and "recalculate our route", seeking a better balance between action and contemplation. In this retreat, I will support the young people in mentoring moments and also in an activity about reflection on life and purpose (connection between mind and heart).

Geert Van Malderen is from Belgium, has 2 children and one grandchild. He loves hiking, biking, dancing, meditating and singing. He will learn us some new contemplative songs.

Emilia Bury christian meditator since 2021, Teacher in forest kindergarten, actress, dancer, singer. Interested in nature and joyfull, simple lifestyle. She offers creative workshop to find a passion in movement, wake up creativity, connect with own body. The workshop is built on a few pillars: writing, dancing, contemplative walk.

Nick Scrimenti is currently a resident at Bonnevaux and manages Special Projects for the WCCM. He holds a B.A. from Georgetown University and an MDiv from Harvard Divinity School (HDS), where he also earned a graduate certificate in Religious Studies & Education. At HDS, Nick specialized in comparative theology and the history and practice of contemplation across religious traditions. Nick's research on Fr. John Main's encounter with Swami Satyananda was awarded a place in the 2021 Stendahl Symposium for excellence in topics concerning conversations across religious boundaries. Nick is passionate about advancing an understanding of the role of religion in peacebuilding and public life. In his spare time, Nick is a freelance writer and an amateur photographer. He believes that photography and contemplation are mutually reinforcing practices, teaching us "ways of seeing" that have the power to transform our lives toward integration, peace, and unity. Enos Mantoani and Nick will be offering a workshop on Contemplative Photography for our retreatants. We will have a conversation about what "contemplative photography" is, an exercise on how to shoot contemplatively, as well as instruction on how to view photography using the tradition of visio divina. On-the-ground retreatants will get a chance to practice the art of photography on the picturesque grounds of Bonnevaux. If you have a camera, please bring it, but any smartphone with a camera will work just fine! They will offer the Contemplative Photography workshop for both online and in-person retreatants.

Enos Mantoani is an Italian meditator, born in 1980. He's currently the National coordinator for Italy and an oblate novice of the community. He's developing a project on Contemplative photography and meditation within the WCCM's Teacher Leader Programme 2021/2022. His passion for photography started at the same time of his encounter with our community and the practice of meditation. Nick Scrimenti and Enos are going to offer some reflections and some exercises designed to nurture a contemplative view of the world that surrounds us. This can be reflected in producing or viewing images in a different way from the one we are nowadays used to. "I am really happy to help develop these sessions because I was part of the first Young Adults Retreat held in Bonnevaux in 2019. That retreat was of extreme importance for my spiritual growth and deepened my bond with the community."

Anja T'Kindt, 45 years old, lives in Belgium. She has worked with people with learning disabilities in L'Arche for more than 20 years. "These people have taught me to live on the level of the heart, meditation is just the next step. I spread the gift of meditation to everyone with workshops in care-centers, schools, business,...", says Anja. In her workshop she will help you to express what's living in your heart through coloring, painting and pasting. We learn to let go of our judgment of ourselves and enjoy the creative process in itself. NO prior artistic knowledge is a plus.