The Great Search - A Retreat with John Philip Newell & Cami Twilling

Join us May 9-11, 2025 for a retreat with John Philip Newell and Cami Twilling. The retreat focuses on the main themes of John Philip's ground-breaking new book, The Great Search: Turning to Earth & Soul in the Quest for Healing and Home.

Retreat Schedule

Friday Session and Book Signing - Friday, May 9, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.

Saturday Retreat Session - Saturday, May 10, 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and 1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. (lunch on your own)

Sunday Music and Spirit Service - Sunday, May 11 at 11:00 a.m. (no ticket required, donations requested)

From the book: "We need to move from a spirituality of alienation from the natural world to a spirituality of intimacy with the natural world." - The Great Search

What others are saying: "This book sings the songs of a loving heart, expressing the yearnings of the divine within. His words feel like touchstones, guiding lights in a time of darkness." (Rabbi Nahum Ward-Lev, author of The Liberating Path of the Hebrew Prophets)

About the Retreat Leaders

John Philip Newell

John Philip Newell (b 1953) is an internationally renowned Celtic teacher and author of spirituality who calls the modern world to reawaken to the sacredness of Earth and every human being.

Canadian by birth, and also Scottish, he resides with his wife Ali in the ecovillage of Findhorn in Scotland. In 2016 he began the Earth & Soul initiative and teaches regularly in the United States and Canada as well as leading international pilgrimage weeks on Iona in the Western Isles of Scotland.

His PhD is from the University of Edinburgh and he has authored over fifteen books, including his award-winning publication, Sacred Earth Sacred Soul, which was the 2022 Gold Winner of the Nautilus Book Award for Spirituality and Religious Thought of the West. His new book, also with HarperOne, is The Great Search (August 2024), in which he looks at the great spiritual yearnings of humanity today in the context of the decline of religion as we have known it.

Newell speaks of himself as ‘a wandering teacher’ following the ancient path of many lone teachers before him in the Celtic tradition, seeking the wellbeing of the world. He has been described as having ‘the heart of a Celtic bard and the mind of a Celtic scholar’, combining in his teachings the poetic and the intellectual, the head as well as the heart, and spiritual awareness as well as political and ecological concern.

Cami Twilling

Cami Twilling, based in Colorado, is the Director of Earth & Soul (a Celtic initiative of study, spiritual practice and compassionate action inspired by the teachings of John Philip Newell). As well as heading up the overall work of Earth & Soul, she facilitates the spiritual practice component of the Earth & Soul Retreats. In addition to leading mountain and urban retreats, she has led international pilgrimage groups to Iona in the Western Isles of Scotland and work teams to Guatemala to build houses in communities that have suffered from political strife and economic hardship. Cami is passionate about the relationship between spirituality and action and believes that spiritual vision and practice can play a vital role in helping to heal and transform our lives both individually and together.