Ray Davi attends discussion on “The Emerson Circle”, presented by Matthew Piepenburg, at the Claremont Hotel in Berkeley on March 22, 2007.
The Emerson Circle is a three day weekend retreat held annually each summer at the Sundance Resort in Utah.

Matthew Piepenburg, who lives in France, has written a book called “What Matters”.  He leads the Emerson Circle based upon his book and its focus on timeless lessons in the art of conducting a life.  References are based upon inspired writings from great authors and poets including Gibran, Goethe, Bacon, Kant, Nietzsche, Rilke, Shakespeare, Tolstoy and Emerson, among 3500 years of man’s best thinking.

The Emerson Circle agenda is broken into three days:

Day #1:	Being alone:	Being in union:
	Individuality	Friendship
	Self-sufficiency	Sex
	Sitting still	Love
	Character
Day #2:	Other things that matter:
	Living in the moment
	Looking forward
	Finding meaning
	God
Day #3:	Help from what hurts:
	Adversity
	Suffering
	Death

The Emerson Circle is an intimate group, limited to no more than fifteen guests per gathering.  With only a handful of gatherings per year, it is discovered subtly, by word of mouth.

See www.EmersonCircle.org for more details.

Piepenburg calls the Emerson Circle “An oil change for the mind”.  A way to distill core ideas from authors and poet’s that do make a difference in your everyday life.

He uses the author’s writings as case studies on how to live, or core studies of life.