We are thrilled to announce that Ecodharma Retreat Center (RMERC) in Colorado will be hosting a weeklong residential retreat with Lama Rod Owens at Cal-Wood for up to eighty participants from May 25-31, 2024.
Lama Rod is currently releasing his latest book, The New Saints. He is a beloved leader in exploring the intersection between Dharma and ways to address the ecological crises of our time, and heal the racial traumas due to colonizations of lands and minds.
Be sure to keep these dates open, and stay tuned for details on the retreat, coming soon.
If you wish to learn more about Lama Rod Owens, you can do so on his website here. To learn more about the venue at Cal-Wood, click here.
About the Retreat
The earth is precious. Without its health and stability our own well-being is threatened. Each day we learn more and more about the ways our earth and climate are becoming jeopardized. For most of us, this has created a deep fear and overwhelming anxiety. We are faced with the struggle of making choices to live more sustainably while systems of violence and power like capitalism, racism, patriarchy, and others continue to disrupt this work of sustainability.
Engaging in climate change work is more than just making choices to live more sustainably such as beginning to recycle more, eating less meat, or investing in renewable energy. It is even more than climate activism and organizing. It means returning to an indigenous way of being and living, a path that has been disrupted in communities all over the world through colonialism and capitalism. The way forward is learning how to bridge our choices around sustainable living with a conscious practice reconnecting to the consciousness of the earth, learning to tend to our individual and collective suffering which impacts the earth, and returning to embracing a deep care of our communities.
In this retreat we will explore themes around climate anxiety, the harm of individual and collective narcissism, connecting to the awakened consciousness of the earth as well as the sky, and developing renewed visions for climate change organizing and activism based on the recognition that all systems of violence intersect with climate change work. We will be relying on Lama Rod’s newest book, The New Saints, along with ancient Buddhist based practices, including mindfulness and tantra, and body-based practices to deepen our understanding of our body’s connection to the earth. This retreat is open to anyone regardless of practice experience.
About Lama Rod
Lama Rod Owens is a Black Buddhist Southern Queen. An international influencer with a Master of Divinity degree in Buddhist Studies from Harvard Divinity School with a focus on the intersection of social change, identity, and spiritual practice. Author of The New Saints: From Broken Hearts to Spiritual Warriors and Love and Rage: The Path of Liberation through Anger and co-author of Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love and Liberation, his teachings center on freedom, self-expression, and radical self-care. Highly sought after for talks, retreats, and workshops, his mission is showing you how to heal and free yourself.
A leading voice in a new generation of Buddhist teachers with over 11 years of experience, Lama Rod is highly respected among his peers and the communities that he serves. “It can be confusing for people to see Tantric Buddhist teachings coming from someone who’s Black and queer, southern, and fat, but I love it. It’s who I am.” he says. From these intersections, he creates a platform that’s very natural, engaging, and inclusive.
Applauded for his mastery in balancing weighty topics with a sense of lightness while still speaking truth to power, this Queen has been featured by CNN, Good Morning America, BBC, The Washington Post, PBS, NPR, Ebony, and more.
Connection is Lama Rod’s second language; authenticity is his first. Meeting people where they are and speaking to them rather than at them with words they can relate to makes his delivery digestible and highly sought after.
Honoring his southern roots, he refers to his healing approach as “laying hands.” His laying of hands, however, is guidance. It’s showing you how to do the work of making the necessary choices in your day-to-day relationships and routines to heal and free yourself from the traumas that bind you to self-sabotaging behaviors.
