Nautilus Alumni Weekend
Hear Again. Dream Anew. Make Together.
Come to celebrate and share in what is emerging!
All Nautilus alum are invited to our 5-Year Alumni Gathering!
Rather than simply looking back on what we’ve experienced together, our hope is that this weekend helps us look ahead, offering a place to slow down together, listen well, and tend to what God is bringing forth in our lives, our work, and our cities.
God often reveals the future quietly, like seeds beneath the soil before they ever become visible. So we’d love to ask: What is emerging in this season of your life? Perhaps it’s a creative idea that’s still unfolding, a vocational transition, a new venture taking shape, or simply a quiet invitation from God that you’d value discerning alongside others.
The Experience
Through meals together, interactive experiences, guided spiritual formation sessions, and engaging conversation, we’ll expand our perception together to see how God is at work in and across this incredible community. You’ll have the opportunity to engage with several new projects and ventures emerging, and enjoy time reconnecting by class.
Immersive Moments to Choose From:
The Power of Scent with Sherry El-Gawly
Everything has a smell — fruit on the table, rain on warm pavement, a brand-new book, the person sitting beside you. Yet of all our senses, smell is the one we most often overlook. We go to a concert for sound, a restaurant for taste, a gallery for sight — but rarely do we stop to truly smell. This guided session is an invitation to slow down and pay attention. Part sensory tasting, part conversation, it reawakens one of our most emotional and underestimated senses — and gives you the language to understand, choose, and enjoy fragrance with new confidence. Scents to smell are woven throughout.
Tasting on Purpose with Vanessa Leong
Join Vanessa for a wine experience that breaks down the building blocks of tasting wine. Tasting on Purpose is more a journey of discovery than a lecture and you’ll walk away with a new vocabulary to describe what you like (or don’t like) in wine. Is there a more enjoyable way to practice attentiveness than with a glass of wine?? Vanessa has a WSET certification and has worked behind the scenes at a vineyard in France’s Rhône Valley.
Hopeful Intelligence with David Kim
In this interactive workshop, David Kim will guide participants through an exploration of how community and spiritual wisdom can inform the way we design, understand, and collaborate with Al systems. We’ll be using a skill developed for this occasion to expand our imagination for the future. This offering will present a Hopeful Intelligence framework, exploring how artificial intelligence can expand beyond efficiency and profit-driven assumptions to become an unprecedented tool for hope, imagination, and human flourishing.
Special Saturday Night Event:
Listening Experience with Sandra McCracken
Joined by Byron House on bass and Tim Nicholson on piano, Sandra invites us into an immersive time of music, contemplation, and reflection. The Still Point is a new folk-neoclassical project created by Sandra and collaborator Ben Shive. The songs use repeated motifs and extended instrumentals to make space for the imagination to slow and expand. Led by Sandra and David, through song and scripture, we’ll be guided on a sensory tour of sounds, tastes, and scents, to enliven our perception of how God is present and active in our own lives, our communities, our work, and our world.
Dates & Registration
Dates: October 2-4, 2026 | Starts Friday at 6pm and ends Sunday by 1pm.
Location: The Erdman Center at Princeton Theological Seminary
Cost: Choose your Tier – A Pricing Model Rooted in Generosity & Relationship
At Goldenwood, we believe in a gift economy—where our work and giving is not transactional but part of a relational and generative system. Like a root network, where some trees bear more fruit in one season and others in another, this pricing approach allows for a shared ecosystem of flourishing—some contribute more so that others may receive, and all are sustained together.
Our tiered pricing model reflects this, allowing participants to contribute at a level that aligns with their capacity while supporting the mission to see work revived by love. We invite you to participate in a way that reflects your own season and capacity.
Lodging is separate for all tiers; see details below.
1. Full Value (Sustainable Tier) – $450 + Accommodations
Reflects the true cost and value, including the unseen work that makes this a meaningful and transformative experience, while balancing affordability. Includes most meals, retreat sessions, & materials. Does not include lodging; see info below.
2. Covering Costs (Supported Tier) – $350 + Accommodations
Covers only the essentials—venues, facilitators, meals, materials—ensuring the retreat is financially viable. Includes most meals, retreat sessions, & materials. Does not include lodging; see info below.
3. Generative Giving – $600 or choose your amount + Accommodations
Goes beyond covering costs, helping make our programs accessible to others and investing in the long-term flourishing of this work. Includes most meals, retreat sessions, & materials. Does not include lodging; see info below.
Lodging: We have a room block reserved at Princeton Theological Seminary’s Erdman Center. Details and room types available for add-on when you register, first come first serve.
If you prefer to book your own room nearby, suggested accommodations include:
- Graduate Hotel by Hilton (Members can book with points)
- Peacock Inn
- Nassau Inn
- AirBnbs near Princeton University are also available that weekend and could be rented and shared!