Slate Branch Retreat House and Center

The Jones Educational Foundation, Inc. operates Slate Branch Retreat House and Center, an ecumenical facility located south of Somerset within easy walking distance of Lake Cumberland. Slate Branch Retreat House is situated on a 90 plus acre farm that once belonged to Dr. Jones’ paternal grandparents, Helen (Cundiff) and Sherman Girdler. Dr. Jones spent many splendid hours here as a child roaming the countryside. Slate Branch House was designed by Mrs. Elva Jones, working with Kentucky builders, as a surprise gift for her daughter. Dr. Jones decided that the cedar house and rolling hills were too special not to share with others.

The programs at Slate Branch House are aimed at awakening and deepening the heart’s natural peace, compassion, and stillness. Meditation is one of the ways through which retreat participants are guided to experience interior stillness, and guidance in learning to work with the senses rather than against them helps to enhance internal peace as well as dynamic energy

Dr. Jones holds a Ph.D. in religion, culture, and literature from Emory University (1983). She serves as Spiritual Director for Slate Branch Retreat Center. A member of First United Methodist Church of Somerset, Dr. Jones has practiced contemplative prayer since 1978 and worked with Master Teachers in affirmative of scientific mind treatment, meditation, and yoga since 1978. She is a friend of Buddhism, and her anchor path is Siddha Yoga.

Guided retreats for individuals at Slate Branch Retreat House are available at the modest price of $50 per day and self-directed retreats for $30 per day. Discounts are available for groups. Interested parties should contact Dr. Jones at drjones@jonesfoundation.net

Dr. Jones teaches that maintaining a vegetarian diet is important to the process of spiritual growth and development. In summer, many of the vegetables used for cooking at Slate Branch are grown in a chemical free garden on the farm. Long-range plans call for making Slate Branch a sustainable community. Those interested in offering service in exchange for lodging and/or spiritual guidance should contact Dr. Jones at drjones@jonesfoundation.net

In Spring 2006, as she was teaching the upper division Honors seminar in comparative world religions at the University of Kentucky, Dr. Jones was nominated to the position of Provost at the University of Kentucky. She withdrew the nomination. Shortly thereafter, she was nominated to the position of Academic Vice President and Dean of the Faculty at Naropa University. She decided to go through this process and bowed out as a semi-finalist due primarily to family and business interests in Kentucky. She continues to lend support to Naropa as a member of Tom Coburn’s "President’s List" and hopes to accept an invitation to give a presentation at Naropa’s Center for the Advancement of Contemplative Education in the near future.

Dr. Jones has presented at meetings of the American Academy of Religion, the American Culture Association, the Asian American Association, and the Modern Language Association. She has lectured at prestigious universities in Africa, Asia, Canada, and Europe as well as the United States. She has traveled around the world as part of the Faculty of Semester at Sea, and she believes, with British novelist and feminist Virginia Woolf, that her purpose as an educator is to help create "world citizens" who are capable of seeing beyond the polarities of us and them. Dr. Jones has traveled and studied widely in India and welcomes each opportunity to return to the country that has, in her words, "given the world so much wisdom."

Slate Branch Retreat House integrates regional with international art. Books from virtually all cultures and spiritual traditions may be found on the shelves at Slate Branch. Some of the shelves themselves came from Garner School, a two-room school in Pulaski Co. where Mrs. Jones taught early in her career and where Dr. Jones began primer and first grade at age five. The cedar house is all pine inside, and a vaulted ceiling graces the common room in which a stone fireplace and wainscoting invite weary travelers to rest.

Slate Branch Retreat House is a place to be quiet and contemplate the beauty of nature as well as inner growth. Dr Jones specializes in working with the senses and with advanced spiritual process. People interested in offering long-term seva should contact Dr. Jones at drjones@jonesfoundation.net or 606-678-0880.

Visitors to Slate Branch House have commented on the "interesting" furnishings; family heirlooms combine with chairs from the 1960s to create an eclectic elegance. One visitor from Pennsylvania said she loves Slate Branch, because the house "smells so good." A retired professor from Kentucky called Slate Branch a "laughing house," because the energy here is welcoming. A couple who winters in Florida emailed Dr. Jones to say they miss the silence of the house as well as their teacher.

Dr. Jane Gentry Vance,
Kentucky's Poet Laureate,
Visited Slate Branch in November.

Retreats for individuals or groups wishing instruction in meditation and writing are available at Slate Branch. Writers may also make solo retreats to Slate Branch for modest donations to The Jones Foundation. Occasionally, The Jones Foundation may elect to offer scholarships to writers and other creative artists, journalists, and scholars who need time and space to launch or complete a work in process. Writers working in interdisdiplinary areas are especially encouraged to apply for residence at Slate Branch.

For more information about Slate Branch, or to make reservations, please phone Dr. Jones at 606-678-0880 or email her at drjones@jonesfoundation.net

Slate Branch Retreat opened for the summer season May 15 and is scheduled to remain open through Thanksgiving, 2007.