Donna Worthington

Donna is an experienced retreat giver and leads retreats in the UK and Ireland. She has led retreats in various places including St Bede's Pastoral Centre York, St Beuno's Wales, Whalley Abbey Lancashire, Mirfield Yorkshire, St Joseph's Prayer Centre Liverpool, Scargill House Yorkshire, Our Lady of Hyning Monastery Lancashire, Lindisfarne Holy Island, Manresa Jesuit Centre of Spirituality Dublin, Avila Carmelite Centre Dublin, Glendalough Ireland. Donna worked at Tabor, an ecumenical retreat centre in Lancashire and has offered retreats in parishes, churches and schools. She is trained in spiritual direction and has accompanied many people during weeks of guided prayer and through one-to-one direction; she also offers the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises. | Trained as a labyrinth facilitator, she has led many labyrinth events for groups of all ages in various educational and faith contexts. She set up a labyrinth team that offers creative labyrinth walks to the public and has also offered labyrinth training to others; she has worked with schools, chaplains, churches and individuals wanting to explore this ministry.  

Having studied Theology at Cambridge, Donna completed an MPhil at Manchester University, while developing a local theology in the context of working as a street theologian on a marginalised housing estate in Blackburn, Lancashire. | Donna is a trained teacher and has worked in secondary, further and higher education, including as Head of the Ethics, Philosophy, Religion Department in a secondary school, teaching Religious Studies up to GCSE and A Level. She has also been a teacher trainer in Primary RE. Donna works in Arts and Wellbeing and is a Performance Storyteller and Theatre Director. She is trained in mindfulness and also grief counselling. | Donna has MAs in Theatre Directing, Writing and TV Production (The Star-Gazer film was shown on Granada TV in 2000).

She has written several plays including Illumination (Durham Cathedral and touring) written in the light of the Lindisfarne Gospel Exhibition, Blackbirds At Dawn, created to raise awareness of human trafficking and wrote and performed a one-woman production of Desert Mother, developed to explore Christian contemplative prayer. Donna's latest theatre work was working with men in recovery from addiction, culminating in the production 'Thread of Hope'. Donna has a deep interest in Celtic Christianity and has creatively explored the spirituality of the saints Aidan, Cuthbert, Hilda, Kevin, Brigid, including researching the imaginative epic sea journey of Brendan the Navigator and exploring this with others in retreat work. She has led creative workshops with all ages and on various themes, including exploring the Gospels through theatre and movement. She also explores dream-prayer and how to pray through movement.

Retreat Leader

Donna Worthington
Desert Mother

The Selkie

Labyrinth

Tell A Friend

Search