Our Retreat Team
Our community of interfaith retreat leaders shares a commitment to Divine Love in the spirit of peace, service, and humility. Each brings their own spiritual background and contemplative experience while honoring the many paths of those who journey with us.
Throughout the retreat, your retreat leader offers meditation and contemplation practices that help guide the rhythm of each day. They are also available for individual meditation guidance and spiritual conversation.
Above all, our teachers are dedicated to supporting each guest with kindness and understanding,
creating space to slow down, listen deeply, and receive the unique peace of Assisi.
Current Retreat Leaders
Vinod Ravindranathan
Vinod has been practicing meditation for over 30 years. In 1994 he was trained in Vipassana at the Wat Ram Poeng monastery in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Although not a Buddhist monk, he accomplished the same degree of training. A few years later he earned his Mindfulness Teacher Training from Bangor University.
He currently facilitates the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Course in London. In the earlier part of his career, he worked in the corporate world as a lawyer before joining various non-profit organizations including; the UNHCR and Amnesty International Secretariat in London. In Amnesty International he helped people dealing with sexual & gender equality, migrant & refugee rights, compassionate care for drug addicts and animal welfare.
Vinod finds joy in sharing the heart practices of St Francis as a guide to inner peace. Vinod has led many retreats for us and will currently be in Assisi every December to lead Christmas and New Years.
Barbara Bharavi Donati
Barbara started her spiritual journey at the age of 23 which led her to explore different paths of meditation and spiritual growth. In her spiritual search, which has spanned various schools and traditions, she has also practiced Vipassana and the teachings of Paramahnasa Yogananda. She is trained as a children's yoga teacher and currently teaches meditation and yoga in local schools for children, teachers and parents.
She lives in Assisi, a place that is a profound grace for her. Here she has the daily opportunity to nourish and deepen her inner bond with Saint Clare, Saint Francis and the Divine. In this place she senses a living presence that accompanies her spiritual journey with simplicity, light and blessings.
Yoga and meditation gradually became an essential part of her life, transforming her inner world and the way she lives. Through these practices she meets daily challenges with greater balance, love and a renewed sense of serenity. Her teaching style is gentle, intuitive and connects people to the inner life of St Francis. She helps people to cultivate presence, the space of inner quiet and deep listening.
Liam entered Saint Charles Seminary in Philidelphia at the age of 18 and was ordained as a Catholic priest in 1990. He worked with the Latino community for 32 years as a parish priest, which led him to serve in Barceloneta, Puerto Rico for 4 years. In 2015, he opened a store-front church in the Kensington section of Philadelphia, Mother of Mercy House, to be a Presence of Peace in an area torn apart by violence, poverty and drugs.
In 2022 Liam discerned a call to a more all-inclusive ministry that encourages the development of the mystic in every person. Convinced that SILENCE leads us to our true self and to an ever-increasing awareness of the interconnectedness of all Creation, he seeks ways to accompany those seeking such unity and peace: all hearts beating in unison with each other inside the One Heart.
Assisi, the home of peace and inclusive to all, is why he chose to be a part of the Assisi Team bringing love to all.
Liam Murphy
Brenda Brisch
Brenda has been lovingly guiding contemplative retreats for over 40 years and has devoted much of her life to spiritual inquiry. After practicing Transcendental Meditation in the 1970’s, she studied Vedanta philosophy and yoga with an Indian monk from Gujarat. She began teaching Hatha Yoga in his school in Chicago shortly thereafter. In 1976, she met her teacher, Swami Muktananda, with whom she traveled widely for many years. She became a monk under his auspices. He instructed her to continue teaching in Europe, India, and the United States. She was the swami in residence in the Paris ashram.
She joined the Assisi Retreat Community of retreat leaders in 2015. Brenda is our lead retreat leader with extensive background in awareness training. She helps people discover their unique pathway to inner peace, and to understand that all of life’s circumstances are a guide to finding the stillness within. She gently guides people into the sweetness & peace St Francis & St Clare inspire. She is a student of the Course in Miracles and Kashmir Shaivism. She brings great wisdom, love and joy to her retreats.
Robin Klaassen
Guest Experience & Retreat Coordinator
Joining her first Yoga and Meditation classes at age nine, Robin has since been interested in the practice of Conscious Being and Spirituality with child-like wonder. Still very much at the beginning of her own spiritual journey, she is devoted to living with her heart first.
Robin lovingly handles your registration requests and is there for you to answer any additional questions you might have about traveling, the retreats, or Assisi itself.
Founders Ruth & Bruce Davis
Bruce Davis Ph.D. | Co-Founder
Bruce Davis is a spiritual psychologist, author, and international retreat leader whose work explores the meeting place of psychology, contemplative spirituality, and the heart.
His spiritual search deepened as a graduate student, when an apprenticeship with a shaman introduced him to ways of understanding consciousness beyond conventional Western psychology. Over the decades, his search for the shared contemplative heart of the world’s spiritual traditions has taken him to teachers and communities in India, the Philippines, Germany, Bali, and throughout Europe. He received his doctorate from Saybrook University and has taught world religions at JFK University and spiritual centers in the United States and Europe.
Bruce began leading retreats in Assisi in 1983. His teaching emphasizes silence, simplicity, and the movement from the activity of the thinking mind into what he calls the quiet heart. Through meditation and contemplative practice, he invites people to discover an inner sanctuary that can remain present within the circumstances of everyday life.
His work has also included supporting people as they integrate profound spiritual experiences, including near-death experiences and spiritual awakenings, helping them bring these experiences into a grounded and meaningful relationship with daily life.
Bruce’s writing began with The Magical Child Within You in 1975 and has continued through books exploring inner healing, joy, sacred silence, Saint Francis and Saint Clare, and the heart of awareness. His books include Monastery Without Walls, The Calling of Joy, Simple Peace, Unveiling the Heart of Awareness, and his newest work, Love Letters of St. Francis and St. Clare.
Together with Ruth, Bruce lived and taught in Assisi for twelve years, creating contemplative spaces where people of many faiths and backgrounds could experience meditation, pilgrimage, and the simple peace of Assisi. They now live and teach in Montecito, California, while remaining closely connected to the Assisi retreats and the community that has grown around them.
Ruth Davis | Co-Founder
Ruth Davis is a spiritual teacher, author, and retreat leader whose path has been shaped by a lifelong relationship with movement, meditation, devotion, and the Spiritual Heart.
Her spiritual journey began at the age of six during her first ballet class, when she experienced movement as a direct connection with the Divine. Dance became a form of devotional practice, eventually expanding to include Modern, Jazz, African, Russian folk, and interpretive dance, as well as the energetic practices of Qi Gong and inner Yoga.
At sixteen, Ruth was initiated into Surat Shabd Yoga, a contemplative tradition from the Punjab region of India that became a foundation of her spiritual life. Her path later took her to sacred places throughout India, including Rishikesh, Haridwar, Varanasi, Tiruvannamalai, and the Punjab. Her studies over the decades have also included Vedic and Tantric wisdom, Mystic Catholicism, and the teachings of Ramana Maharshi.
Ruth studied dance, music, and philosophy at Mills College in Oakland, California, and holds professional certifications in Qi Gong, Clinical Hypnotherapy, Neuro-Linguistic Programming, and Ayurvedic education. She began leading spiritual retreats with Bruce in 1993.
While living and teaching in Assisi, Ruth began an intensive study of the MahaVidyas, the Wisdom Mothers of Yoga Tantra, a devotional practice she continues today. From this work emerged embodied meditation practices including Sacred Movement Ritual and Standing as the Universe. At the heart of her teaching is an invitation to move beneath the activity of the mind and rest awareness in the Spiritual Heart, the inner ground from which wisdom, love, and presence arise.
In 2003, after years of leading retreats, Ruth created The Little Flowers, an interfaith contemplative community for retreat participants who felt called to make a deeper commitment to the life of the heart. Rooted in meditation, heartfelt intention, and service, the community has become an enduring circle of spiritual friendship among people of many faiths and traditions around the world.
Ruth is the author of Sacred Movement Ritual: Yoga Philosophy in Movement and Journeying Up the Mountain with the Tantric Goddesses, an exploration of the ten MahaVidyas and their wisdom. She continues to teach meditation, sacred movement, and the path of the Spiritual Heart from her home in Montecito, California.
Come Experience Assisi With Us
Our retreat team is here to welcome you and
support your journey from the moment you begin planning.