RMERC Leader Profile

Please check back in 2026 for details

Cornelia Santschi

Co-Leader

About Leader

Cornelia (Punnya) Santschi is a neuropsychologist and meditation teacher. She is deeply committed to environmental conservation and social justice. At the RWJ Barnabas Health Institute of Neurology in NJ, she has specialized in brain-behavior relationships for over 20 years. Cornelia is a devoted student of Buddhism with a dedicated insight meditation practice since 2000. She completed yoga teacher training at Integral Yoga in NYC in 2001, and graduated from the Community Dharma Leader Program in 2017.

As founder/president of non-profit Anatta World Health & Education Outreach, Cornelia has organized culturally sensitive health, education, and women’s empowerment programs in multiple countries, with local partners since 2006, and co-leads yearly meaningful travel tours in Nepal. Cornelia is co-founder/board member of Newark Center for Meditative Culture in NJ, where she serves as meditation teacher and insight community liaison; working to increase access to socially engaged programs within a diverse urban community. She is co-founder/vice-president of the Alegria Dharma Center, a meditation retreat center in Costa Rica, where she is developing a comprehensive EcoDharma retreat program.

May 2026

Healing the Whole: Embodying Interconnectedness

This nature meditation retreat is designed to support wholeness of being through land-based mindfulness and psychological trauma-informed healing practices. Often unhealed trauma, as well as unwholesome and unconscious patterns of living, disrupt the ways we can experience well-being. We will explore ways to balance our inner/outer nature, feminine/masculine sense of being, inner shadows/light, traumas/life force energy and individual/collective patterns to find our way to greater flourishing. By reconnecting to nature and examining the places we are out of alignment, disconnected, or stuck, we can transform trauma, living our way into a more integrated expression of wholeness within ourselves and with the wider world. Deepening our embodiment of interconnectedness to all of life enhances our capacity to serve the well-being of our relationships, communities, and the Earth.

25 – 30 May

All Day

6 – 7 Days

View Detail

July 2026

Deep Immersion: a Supported Camping Solo Retreat

This retreat offers a deep, unhurried immersion into the natural world, where extended solo time at your own campsite, balanced with daily support from experienced teachers and community, reveals the profound peace, belonging, and self-discovery that arise when we let nature guide us. Designed for seasoned retreatants comfortable in solitude, it invites you to rest in silence, reconnect with your essential being, and experience the healing recognition that you are not just in nature, you are nature.

20 – 25 Jul