by Sylvia Somerville, Special to Kudos
Back to In The News ~ Dawna Markova Retreat

Dawna Markova, an international authority on learning and the uses of creativity for change, is an extraordinary human being. She has the gift of seeing the spot of grace in everyone. She can see what others sometimes miss because she knows how to pay exquisite attention to other people, a skill she developed by paying exquisite attention to herself.

Over the past 30 years Markova has had three bouts with cancer. At one of those junctures she went on a solitary retreat and wrote what has become a beloved book all over the world I Will Not Die an Unlived Life. Named after a poem she wrote after her father’s death, the book outlines Markova’s process for reclaiming the passion and purpose of her life. “Living on purpose requires us to find what we love fiercely, give it all we’ve got, and then pass it on, as if it were a torch, to those who follow,” she says.

For Markova this has meant dedicating herself to teaching other people the art of knowing themselves and discovering the unique gift they have to give to the world.

Markova brings both her own experience and extensive training to her groundbreaking work. She has a Ph.D. in psychology and education, is the CEO of Professional Thinking Partners, Inc., president of SmartWired.org, cofounder of the World Women's Web, a former senior affiliate of the Organizational Learning Center at MIT, and has established learning communities around the world. She has authored nearly a dozen books, many on unleashing creativity in children, and is one the coeditors of the Random Acts of Kindness series. Markova was recently honored with the Visions to Action Award, "for people who have made a profound contribution to the world."

On Saturday, May 13, Markova is coming to Sedona to facilitate a retreat for women at the Sedona Creative Life Center called I Will Not Die an Unlived Life: Reclaiming Passion and Purpose. The retreat, which will run from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., is being sponsored by A Woman’s Way, a local organization committed to encouraging women to find their vision and their voice. The cost is $90. To register or for more information, call 928-254-1897.

“The realization that the source of passion is inside leaves us knowing that it is within our sphere of influence to recover, reclaim and rekindle it,” says Markova. Recovery begins with attention, an attention that Markova believes few of us extend to ourselves because everything in our culture demands that we focus “out there” to things “that ring, buzz and call us away from ourselves.”

The structure of a retreat helps us to befriend ourselves in ways that we normally avoid. It creates a nurturing environment where it becomes comfortable to pay attention to who we are with the same kind of delight and wonder we might extend to a newborn or someone fascinating on a first date. It’s about listening to ourselves and asking wide and open questions about what really matters, courageous questions that can shift our perception and lead us forward to new explorations of the world. “Perhaps the differences between us are really the differences in the questions we habitually ask ourselves,” notes Markova. “In retreat we create the space so that women can find the questions that are at the center of their life.”

Once we experience this kind of loving attention, we recognize it as a longing for ourselves. “It’s awkward at first. But then there is a sigh of relief, like coming home,” she says. The retreat tools we use can then be a way of coming back to ourselves again and again when we feel grey or when the world seems flat.

According to Markova, “We have to reconnect with ourselves so that we can stand for something greater than ourselves. … Each of us is here to give something that only we can offer…. Cultivating, developing and setting free our gifts is the essential labor of our life.”

Sedona writer Sylvia Somerville writes frequently about arts and culture.

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Dawna Markova Retreat