Josephine Pretorius will offer a 3-day deep silent retreat “The Gifts of Silence”, with a 2-day option available. The proposed themes of the time will be around reflecting on a short reading drawn from various sources:
Entering the Silence – Reverence ( Laurence Freeman Light Within)
Deepening Silence – Poverty (John Main “Second Conference” in The Gethsemani Talks)
Silent prayer (Maggie Ross “The Space of Prayer” in Writing the Icon of the Heart)
Gratitude (Sarah Bachelard “Just Now” in Poetica Divina.)
This silent retreat is for you if:
* you meditate regularly or have previous experience of meditation
* are seeking rest and replenishment
* are interested in deepening or reconnecting with your practice in a silent setting
* are inspired by spending time reconnecting with nature
* are willing to be challenged and be open to the healing experience of meditating with others
Retreat Guide
Josephine will be Meditator-in-Residence at Campfire over July & August 2026. She is a long term meditator with a particular interest in the transformative potential of deep silent retreats and sees Campfire in the Heart with its desert location on Arrernte country as a place rich in culture and spirituality. It resonates with the early desert mothers and fathers of the Christian tradition, as well as the richness of other wisdom traditions, as a place to ‘come away’ to and rest a while. Josephine has a background in pastoral care and art therapy. She offers this retreat as an opportunity to experience the many gifts arising out of the slow work of silence and stillness.
Cost: Packages from $390 – $585
Price includes all meals and accommodation in a private room, for 2 nights ($390) or 3 nights ($585)
About the Deep Silent Retreat experience:
• After an introduction on the first evening we will enter into silence. Each morning there will be regular periods of meditation, times of contemplative walking concluding with evening prayer together.
• During a silent meditation retreat, we’ll find that our mind begins to slow down, to calm down, to become more clear and we begin to discover the natural state of the mind.
• During the silent meditation retreat, we will give up all use of digital communication – a digital fast.
• The most important element of an intensive retreat is silence. Firstly, the silence as the mind begins to settle down, becomes more clear and more manageable and secondly, the silence of the heart emerges – a silence beyond thoughts, beyond imagination.
• The intensive silent meditation retreat is also inviting us to enter more fully and simply into a direct experience that we have been entering in our practice of meditation for some time already.
• Participants are asked to read “What to expect from a silent meditation retreat” before attending an deep silent retreat or designing your own retreat.
NO. OF PARTICIPANTS Maximum of 7
ENQUIRIES: Josephine Pretorius pretoriusjl@gmail.com