During one of the taught modules at Sarum College where I am training to be a Spiritual Director we were asked to imagine God as we would like them to be.

This was not an exercise in creating our own version of God, a god we could handle, one which would turn the Creator/creation role upside down, but one in which we could shed the traditional, dare I say it, patriarchal, images of God we have inherited. We could step aside from the old man with flowing beard riding on a cloud image of God, the wrathful ‘Father’ of judgement always wagging a finger, or even the whimsical, ethereal ‘being’ of sacred otherness. This was more of an exercise in finding the heart of our own connection with the Divine at the most intimate and personal level.

Oh how wonderful, I thought, to be able to sit with God (She/Her) the wisest of wise women, to be enshrouded in Her love and Wisdom, and laugh over a G&T. Laugh, cry, learn… To be mothered by God in the way that women can, at the best of times, support and gently challenge each other. Think of a Granny figure passing on knowledge of the ways of life, but without any of the infirmity of old age.

There is rootedness for this image in the Holy Scriptures; the Bible records Jesus referring to God as a Mother Hen, and the Old Testament describes the Holy Spirit as Wisdom in the feminine.

So when the ‘Queen’ of our local Gin Palace reached out to me to offer her regal space as a venue for my Petite Retreats I just couldn’t turn down the offer. There is a holy history to gin after all: gin was first made by monks who described it as an ‘aqua vitae’ or water of life.

And so, our inaugural Gin Retreat will be held in honour of the wise women in our lives: a Mother’s Day mother and daughter treat. A day in which we can rest in the beautiful rooms of the sumptuous Gin Palace, spend time meditating upon the mother-hood of God and laughing together over lunch. We can paint each other’s nails whilst recalling birth/adoption stories, we can henna those hands remembering the childhood holidays, knit and knatter over hopes and dreams that have come to fruition and mourn those that haven’t… And, of course, share a G&T with God.

Mother’s Day Gin Retreat, 29th March 2022, Wessex Spirit’s Gin Palace, Andover. £35 to include a delicious light lunch, guided reflections with prayer cards, optional activities such as nail painting, and a take home G&T gift bag.