Refresh | Make a Submission
Te whakatakoto o ōna kupu

AN INVITATION

We are now inviting submissions for the December 2025 issue of Refresh on the theme of ‘Pilgrimage’. Essays, poetry, imagery, articles, prayer practices, reflections and prayers on this theme will all be considered. Please read the theme exploration below and email your submission to Refresh Co-Editor, Katrina Tulip by March 14, 2025.

Refresh, December 2025

Pilgrimage

Marsden’s Cross Memorial - Rangihoua Bay | Photo by Phillip Donnell 2024

For our summer issue, we invite you to contemplate the spiritual practice of pilgrimage.

How might pilgrimage be an embodied practice of resilience in reactive times? Could ‘walking it out’ be a gift to our nervous systems and the communities we are a part of?
Could slowing down and reconnecting with the whenua return us to an anxious world as agents of love?

What has been your personal experience of pilgrimage in times of loss, transition and challenge? What reimaging or renewal took place for you?

How did you integrate pilgrimage learnings into your everyday life?

Do we need to travel to the other side of the world to be a pilgrim? What does pilgrimage look like here in Aotearoa, New Zealand?

How have you experienced hikoi as a pilgrimage of justice or resistance? What invitations does pilgrimage offer as a practice of contemplation in action?

Deadline for Submissions

Please send submissions by Friday September 19th 2025 to Refresh Co-Editor, Katrina Tulip at katrinat.refresh@gmail.com.

 

Katrina Tulip, Refresh Co-Editor

Guidelines for Contributors

Note: The Refresh editor will edit contributions in accordance with Refresh’s contemplative kaupapa, our house style and to work within space restraints. A selection of articles featured in the print journal will be digitally replicated on the SGM blog.

  • Keep submissions to fewer than 1300 words

  • Send as a Word document

  • Leave one space between sentences

  • Use single quotation marks

  • Be conversational in style

  • Use conjunctions where possible

  • Use endnotes instead of footnotes

  • Use inclusive language wherever possible

  • Send images as attachments - at least 2MB

  • Send a brief bio (40 words) in a separate Word document to your submission

  • Send a head and shoulders photo (2MB) as a separate email attachment
    (not embedded in a Word document).    

 

Insights from Refresh Reader Survey

The seven most popular regular content features people voted to see in Refresh are:

  1. A contemplative prayer practice to explore.

  2. Essay: a contemplative perspective on a contemporary issue

  3. Contemplative Book Corner: highlighting noteworthy books on spiritual direction and contemplative spirituality.

  4. Contemplative poetry

  5. Kete of Knowledge: weaving voices and perspectives from Aotearoa’s multi-cultural threads.

  6. An emerging voice or trend within spiritual direction

  7. Theological reflection on contemplative spirituality.

While Refresh remains primarily a journal of contemplative spirituality, given that over 50% of our readers are spiritual directors (or in formation) we do intend to make space for content related to spiritual direction.