New Year’s Gathering 2026 ~ Celebrating Our Divine Presence With Mystical Poetry, Song and Silence ~ Bay Area
Saturday, January 3, 2026 @ 10:30am - 3:30pm (Pacific Time), IN-PERSON
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New Year’s Gathering 2026
Celebrating Our Divine Presence
With Mystical Poetry, Song and Silence
We invite you to join us for our sacred gathering of song, poetry, silence and dialogue as with tender hearts we welcome this time of new beginnings and honor the divine intelligence animating our being.
“Only the unsayable jeweled inner life matters.” Rumi
Christine Tulis, harpist, singer and healing artist and Judith Shiner, PhD., poet and spiritual mentor, invite you to a time of sacred retreat. We come together to honor and celebrate the divine presence always here within us as we enter this unprecedented New Year.
Through the rich gifts of mystical poetry delicately layered with sublime harp music, we move from our mind into our heart and rest in the deep knowing of our soul’s wisdom. This is a profound time for nourishing our spirit as we open to clarity and peace, the firm foundation for new beginnings unfolding within us.
Weaving periods of contemplation and dialogue with poetry and music, we create a powerful love field in which divine guidance is welcomed. As the day unfolds, we deepen into surrender and trust, acknowledging the unseen dimension of reality where our true guidance originates.
We will have an opportunity to share insights in dyads and the circle that we’ve received from times of contemplation and end our community gathering aware and awake to our divine gifts and blessings.
Christine Tulis
Christine Tulis is a harpist, singer, healing artist and award-winning composer whose music opens doorways to the sacred.
Her life was forever changed the first time she heard the Celtic harp at the age of 22. The celestial beauty and purity of the sound opened her energy body to waves of Love pouring into her body from above her head. This unexpected blessing was the primary turning point of her life and revealed her calling to play the harp for healing and spiritual nourishment. The harp has an ancient history of being played for these purposes and is universally recognized as an archetypal bridge between heaven and earth.
In addition to her harp performances, Christine is a healing arts practitioner offering deeply restorative sessions and sound healing experiences guided by intuition and rooted in the trust in our innate capacity to heal.
Christine is the founder of Sound Temple Healing Arts in San Rafael CA.
Learn more about her healing sessions, retreats and recordings at www.christinetulis.com
Judith Shiner, Ph.D.
Judith Shiner, Ph.D. is a creative visionary, often on the forefront of creating new programs, particularly for women, that focus on self-awareness and living from what is true. She has over 40 years of experience facilitating groups, writing, teaching, psychotherapy and spiritual inquiry. She previously taught at CIIS, exploring emotional dynamics from the spiritual perspective.
Judith also pioneered Sangha Sister’s Retreats for women, which featured women teachers from Adyashanti’s community. She currently facilitates A Circle of Elders: Honoring Our Harvest, which uses poetry as a catalyst, and her Self-Awareness Illumination programs, where she uses the power of presence to reveal the subconscious parts of the false self so they can be transformed by awareness.
Her work is inspired by years of meditation and immersion in spiritual teachings, particularly with Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Jean Klein, Adyashanti and Mooji. She is noted for her warmth, genuine presence, and the depth of her groups and classes. In 2013, she published her first poetry book, Waiting for Spring: Poems of Loss and Renewal and is completing her second book, Wrap Me in Moonlight.
You can contact her to receive a sample video of her live reading at jushiner@gmail.com and to order her full 3-part 38 poem video.
To learn more about her self-awareness illumination sessions and see additional poems visit
www.illuminationsessions.com
The meeting will be from 10:30am to 3:30pm, with a break for lunch.
We welcome you to bring your own brown bag lunch or purchase food from Good Earth (5 minutes drive into town).
Tea will be provided.
Pre-registration required, as space is limited.
Please register early to reserve your place.
Registration closes at midnight on Jan. 2
Sliding Scale: $60 to $120
No one turned away for lack of funds.
For inquiries contact LocalEvents@opencirclecenter.org
Location:
The meeting will be held at a private home in the Fairfax hills, with views of Mount Tam and hiking trails.
Address and directions will be provided upon registration.
If you have symptoms of a viral infection, or have had a recent
Covid exposure or positive test, please stay home out of consideration for others.