PJI Winter Retreat

Retreat Invitation: The Art of Renewal

Inspired by Your Brain on Art by Ivy Ross and Susan Magsamen, this retreat invites you to explore how poetry, mindfulness, and art can open your heart and bring balance to your mind and body.

Join us for a day of guided creative activities, reflection, and time in nature as we explore how the arts nurture connection, resilience, and joy. Together, we’ll slow down, engage in reflective practices, explore the Principles for How We Treat Each Other, and practice the art of asking honest and open questions as a way of deepening our understanding of self and others.

Held at the serene Magnolia Wellness Retreat Center, this experience offers a restorative blend of creativity, mindfulness, and community. Each participant will receive a copy of Your Brain on Art as part of the registration fee. Coffee, snacks, and a nourishing lunch are included.

Registration Includes: Book, meals, and all creative materials

Celine Kavalec has been an educator for 30 years at Valencia College in different capacities, but always connected to teaching. She recently stepped down from directing Valencia’s Teaching/Learning Academy, a nationally recognized program that supports professors as they expand and improve their practice and earn tenure, to return to the classroom and begin work with the Peace and Justice Initiative.   

Dis-ease and relational pain led her to meditation nearly 20 years ago, when she learned to meditate from an energy healer, Maria De St Croix, in Red Bank, New Jersey. This early mantra-based meditation method eventually transformed into mindfulness meditation after taking her first Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course. The journey from college professor to MBSR instructor was a natural evolution in her consciousness and development as a teacher.

Celine is a qualified MBSR instructor, trained through the University of Massachusetts Center for Mindfulness Teacher Training program. She currently teaches mindfulness to students and faculty at Valencia and in the Central Florida community. She entered teaching because of a desire to help others and sees mindfulness as the means to bring healing and joy to herself and others.

You can reach her at [email protected] or through her website amindfulcenterfl.com.  

She wishes presence and peace to all.

Lianna McGowan is an award-winning educator and Academy Director at the Peace and Justice Institute, an innovative organization committed to building inclusive, compassionate communities through education and dialogue. With over 20 years of experience in higher education, Lianna designs and leads programs that integrate mindfulness, trauma-informed practice, and equity-centered leadership. She directs the Teacher Academy, Facilitator Certification Program, and leadership development initiatives that support hundreds of educators, staff, and students each year. A professor at Valencia College and recipient of the Faculty Association Award for Excellence in Teaching, Counseling, and Librarianship, Lianna is also a graduate of Spirit Rock’s Mindful Leadership program and mindfulness teacher.

Her work is grounded in a deep belief that education—when rooted in connection, love and a recognition of our inherent worth and dignity—has the power to transform lives.

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Host or Publisher Peace and Justice Institute at Valencia College