2024 Retreats
Finding the Right Retreat
We host over 30 retreats each summer, taught by over 30 leaders, and we invite you to explore our listings!
“Meet our Leaders” lists all of our 2024 teachers. Click on a leader to see the retreats they are offering.
‘View All Retreats’ is a chronological list of available retreats. Click on a retreat to see the retreat details.
We also list Core Themes of the retreats we offer. These themes are a very rough guide, so please peruse widely to make sure you don’t miss anything.
Core Themes
Ecodharma & Nature Retreats
Women, POC, LGBTQ+, Indigenous, Elders
Meditation Traditions
Grief, Trauma and Healing
Loving Kindness and Compassion
Activism and Social Justice
Accessibility. We endeavor to keep retreat prices as low as possible, and we offer scholarships to those with a genuine need.
Please let us know if there are ways we can help, by emailing [email protected]. We wish you a wonderful retreat!
Meet our Leaders
Find a meaningful connection – it makes all the difference!
Leaders and Co-Leaders
Barry Gillespie
Barry Gillespie was introduced to meditation practice in 1978, through the Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Ashram. In 2003 he began exploring Theravada Buddhist practice, sitting many long retreats at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, MA and Spirit Rock in Woodacre, CA. His principal teacher is Guy Armstrong. Barry is an affiliated teacher with the Insight Meditation Community of Colorado (IMCC). He teaches mainly in Boulder and at the Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center.
Ben Connelly
Ben Connelly is a Soto Zen teacher and Dharma heir in the Katagiri lineage. He also teaches mindfulness in a wide variety of secular contexts and leads wilderness meditation retreats. He works with multifaith groups focused on intersectional liberation, racial justice, and climate justice. Ben is based at Minnesota Zen Meditation Center, travels to teach across the United States, has written for Tricycle and Lion’s Roar magazines, and is author of Inside the Grass Hut, Inside Vasubandhu’s Yogacara, Vasubandhu’s “Three Natures”, and Mindfulness and Intimacy.
Bianca Acosta
Bianca Acosta is a trained teacher of somatic Qigong, traditional ecological design and farming practices (best known as permaculture), and Ecodharma ceremonies at the Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center. She is originally from Zacatecas, Mexico and has been living in Colorado for over 17 years. She is proud of her indigenous roots and her life’s prayer is to be an active co-creator of a more beautiful world by sharing her gifts, being in synergetic relationships with Mother Earth, the diverse communities she is part of and embracing the multi-dimensionality of their being. She currently is in her last year of…
Blake Hestir
Blake Hestir lives in Fort Worth, Texas, the unceded sacred ancestral land of the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes. He is professor of philosophy and the associate director of CALM Studies at TCU in Fort Worth, Texas. He is director and co-founder of The Mind Body Ecology Institute and a member of the Flourishing Academic Network, and an advisor for the Dallas Movement Collective. His teaching and scholarship are in the areas of ancient Greek philosophy, philosophy of mind, and phenomenology, as well as ecology and contemplative research. His current work is a philosophical inquiry into how inner transformation may be cultivated through expanding worldviews,…
Carla Brennan
Carla Brennan, M.Ed., has trained in the Zen, Insight Meditation and Tibetan Buddhist traditions since 1975 and is an authorized Spirit Rock Teacher. She founded Bloom of the Present Insight Meditation (bloomofthepresent.org) in 2014. Carla also taught Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction for 18 years and is a former transpersonal psychotherapist. Currently, she teaches with Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach in the Mindfulness Meditation Teachers Certification Program (MMTCP) and with Cloud Sangha. Carla has spent many months in silent retreat including two monthlong solos in the wilderness. Her dharma approach emphasizes integrating wisdom into everyday life, releasing the qualities of the awakened…
Carol Kortsch
Carol Kortsch was born in Africa, educated in Canada, and then worked internationally building community in different forms. After 25 years in psychotherapy and group practice at Stonehaven Commons in Radnor, PA., she now offers nature-based retreats from Boulder, Colorado as a Courage & Renewal group facilitator. She is blending the Earth-based practices of Animas Valley Institute in a visionary program called ElderSoul. As a life adventurer and Earth listener, she recognizes our essential and critical human need to stop, slow down, and listen to our lives and all our relations speak. What we offer in these circles is a…
Caverly Morgan
Caverly Morgan is a meditation teacher, author, speaker, and nonprofit founder. Her new book, The Heart of Who We Are: Realizing Freedom Together through Sounds True is available here. She is the founder and Lead Contemplative of Peace in Schools—a nonprofit which created the nation’s first for-credit mindfulness class in public high schools. She is also the founder of Presence Collective, a community of cross-cultural contemplatives committed to personal and collective transformation. Caverly blends the original spirit of Zen with a modern nondual approach. Her practice began in 1995 and has included eight years of training in a silent Zen…
Cornelia Santschi
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…
Dave Smith
For over 30 years, Dave Smith has held a practice rooted in the Insight Meditation (Vipassana) tradition. He was empowered to teach through the Against the Stream Buddhist Meditation Society, is a certified teacher for Cultivating Emotional Balance (CEB) which is combines contemporary emotion based scientific research with contemplative practices and psychology drawn from Buddhism. Dave teaches residential meditation retreats, weekly live dharma classes, online courses, and workshops. He lives in rural Colorado with his wife and two sons.
David Chernikoff
David Chernikoff is a meditation teacher, spiritual counselor, and life coach who taught psychology and meditation at Naropa University for many years. A student of meditation since 1971, David completed the inaugural Community Dharma Leader Training at Spirit Rock Meditation Center and began teaching Insight Meditation in 1988. His teaching has been influenced by senior teachers from the Insight Meditation Society and Spirit Rock, Zen teacher Yvonne Rand, and spiritual guides from other contemplative traditions, most notably Ram Dass, Father Thomas Keating, and Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi. In the early 1980s, he worked at Ram Dass’s Hanuman Foundation Dying Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico…
David Loy
David identifies his spiritual roots as primarily in the Japanese Zen tradition. His Zen practice began in Hawaii in 1971 with Yamada Koun and Robert Aitken, and continued with Koun-roshi in Japan, where he lived for almost twenty years. He was authorized to teach in 1988 and has led retreats and workshops nationally and internationally in places such as Spirit Rock, the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies, the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center, Terre d’Eveil in Paris, and Dharma Gate University in Budapest. In 2014 David received an honorary PhD from Carleton College, his alma mater, for his contributions to socially engaged…
Emerson James
Emerson James (they/them) is imagining, articulating, and captivated by a world permeated with the possibilities of queerness. Nourished by contemplative practices, they find vocational calling in cultivating and offering skills in spiritual care and facilitation. After first being introduced as an undergraduate to the Church of the Brethren’s deep commitment to pacifism and social justice, they have been called to the particular role of spiritual practice and action in the transformation and expansion of cultures, systems and modes of awareness. They took to heart young Wendell Berry’s statement that one’s relationship with place is like all relationships, including that of…
Heidi Bourne
Heidi Bourne is a meditation teacher in the Insight Meditation tradition and is the founder and guiding teacher of Pacific Mindfulness. She has been teaching since 2005 offering classes, series courses, nature retreats, trauma-informed and resiliency-focused professional programs, and teaches regularly for Spirit Rock Meditation Center. She holds certification in mindfulness facilitation from UCLA, trauma resiliency from the Trauma Resource Institute, and is a member of the International Mindfulness Teachers Association. Heidi is especially interested in the integration of the common sense, accessible and timeless teachings of awareness, ethics, and compassion into the complexity of our everyday lives. She is…
Jade Sherer
Jade Sherer is a wild elder in the making, a “grief astronomer” (a la Andrea Gibson), and one who apprentices to death and joy. She has devoted her life to showing up to support others as they navigate the transitions of their lives, guiding others in nature-based transformational processes and ceremonies, a mentor to hundreds as they bring their integrity and authentic genius alive and accessible for the world. Jade was trained and then guided with Animas Valley Institute for 15 years and now works independently. (www.ItsOurNature.net) As an animist through and through, Jade’s particular passion is focused on listening…
Jane Seaton
Jane Seaton PhD., at just two and half years old, declared to her mother that she would teach art. She grew up to become both a multimedia artist and a creativity guide for others. Since 1973, Jane has taught hundreds of people from all walks of life how to reawaken and explore the many dimensions of their real artistic nature – often by allowing them to relax and let their hands and heart lead the way. Her teaching programs have varied from weekend workshops to five year training programs. Jane has also been in private practice as a transpersonal psychotherapist…
Jean Leonard
Jean Leonard, Ph.D. (she/her) is a licensed psychologist, dharma teacher, certified Mindful Self-Compassion teacher, and Buddhist Ecochaplain in private practice in Louisville, Colorado. Jean teaches mindfulness classes and mentors mindfulness teachers in training through Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach’s Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program. She has practiced yoga for over 30 years and vipassana meditation (primarily in the Theravada tradition) since 2003, and holds the Dharma as a sacred compass that guides her personal and professional life. Some of her primary teachers have included James Baraz, Gil Fronsdal, Dana DePalma, Thanissara and Kittisaro. She is currently participating in the two-year…
Johann Robbins
Johann has been meditating since starting with TM in college in 1974. He was asked by Eric Kolvig to begin teaching in 2008, and completed Community Dharma Leader teacher training at Spirit Rock shortly thereafter. His primary Insight teachers were Eric Kolvig, Joseph Goldstein, and Shinzen Young, and his primary Direct Path teachers were Adyashanti, Stephan Bodian, and Rupert Spira. Johann’s passion is spiritual practice in and with nature, and he has guided and taught wilderness meditation retreats for almost 30 years, including backpacking, camping, canoeing and solo Vision Quests. In 2016 Johann founded RMERC, where he served as unpaid Executive Director until 2022,…
Jon Aaron
A Dharma and Mindfulness teacher at New York Insight Meditation Center Jon first came across meditation in the 1970s, and then became interested in Insight and Mindfulness practices in the late 1990s, studying mindfulness meditation and Buddhism, which have since become central to his life. A Certified MBSR Teacher and Teacher Trainer, Jon trained in Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction with the Center for Mindfulness at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center and Brown University. In 2016 he completed his training with Breathworks in the UK and has integrated many of these techniques and modalities into all his teaching. He is…
Kaira Jewel Lingo
Kaira Jewel Lingo is a Dharma teacher who has a lifelong interest in blending spirituality and meditation with social justice. Having grown up in an ecumenical Christian community where families practiced a new kind of monasticism and worked with the poor, at the age of twenty-five she entered a Buddhist monastery in the Plum Village tradition and spent fifteen years living as a nun under the guidance of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh. She received Lamp Transmission from Thich Nhat Hanh and became a Zen teacher in 2007, and is also a teacher in the Vipassana Insight lineage through Spirit…
Kirsten Rudestam
Kirsten Rudestam (she/her) believes that practices of (re)connection are crucial in maintaining our capacity to face and respond to ecological loss and to embrace our inherent interbeing. Kirsten holds a Ph.D. in environmental sociology from the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she studied water policy and management, feminist political ecology, and environmental justice. She began practicing meditation in 1997, graduated from Spirit Rock’s Community Dharma Leaders program in 2005 and is currently in a four-year teacher training program with Andrea Fella and Gil Fronsdal of the Insight Meditation Center. She has taught meditation and dharma for Insight Santa Cruz,…
Kritee (Kanko)
Kritee (dharma name Kanko) is a Climate Scientist, Buddhist Zen priest, Educator & Founding Spiritual teacher of Boundless in Motion. She is an ordained teacher in the Rinzai Zen lineage of Cold Mountain and a co-founder of Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center. She has served as faculty for courses or retreats at the intersection of climate crisis, racial justice, trauma healing and spirituality for many organizations including One Earth Sangha, Al Gore’s Climate Reality, Stanford University, World Council of Churches, San Francisco Zen Center, Mind & Life Institute and Lama Foundation. She has served as a leading scientist in the Climate Smart…
Lama Rod Owens
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…
Laurie Cousins
Laurie Cousins is a mindfulness teacher, integrative somatic practitioner, and trauma-informed educator based in Los Angeles. Part of her education and training include the mindfulness centers of UCLA & UCSD and she teaches their signature evidence-based programs of Mindful Awareness Practices and Mindful Self-Compassion. Laurie is mentored by Susan Kaiser Greenland and a lead teacher of the International Inner Kids Collaborative. As a certified CRM Teacher of the Trauma Resource Institute and specializing in the field of trauma and addiction recovery for over 15 years, Laurie offers a holistic approach in her private practice through somatic-centered healing, compassion training, and…
Mark Coleman
Mark Coleman is an inner and outer explorer, who has devotedly studied mindfulness meditation practices for three decades and has taught mindfulness workshops and meditation retreats on six continents for the past twenty years. Mark is a senior meditation teacher at Spirit Rock Meditation Center and cofounder of the Mindfulness Training Institute. Mark is an unabashed nature lover and, through his organization Awake in the Wild, he leads wilderness meditation retreats integrating meditation and nature. Based on his book, Awake in the Wild, Mark leads year-long meditation-in-nature teacher training programs in the US. Mark also holds a MA in Clinical…
Peter Williams
Peter has practiced meditation for 29 years in the Theravada and Tibetan Buddhist traditions. He has done more than 31 months of silent retreat. He has taught insight meditation (mindfulness) since 2003 and has completed the Community Dharma Leader training through Spirit Rock Meditation Center. Peter teaches retreats and dedicated practitioner groups based in Longmont, CO. He has taught mindfulness to diverse audiences, from Colorado juvenile justices to school teachers to environmentalists. He is one of the founders of the Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center in the mountains near Boulder, CO. Peter has been practicing as a transpersonal psychotherapist since 2007,…
Piero Falci
Piero Falci teaches Mindfulness Meditation and Mindful Living. He is certified to teach the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program, the Center for Mind-Body Medicine (CMBM) model, and Mindfulness in Schools (MiSP) programs for teenagers. He received his MBSR teacher training at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, and at the Brown University School of Public Health. He is a board member of the Academy of Heart and Mind and the organization’s Representative on Sustainable Development to the United Nations. Piero has written several books, including the book series “A Better Life in a Better World,” and has created a variety of courses on how to apply mindfulness…
Ramon Gabrieloff-Parish
Ramon Gabrieloff-Parish Ramon Gabrieloff-Parish is a lifelong star gazer, Afrofuturist philosopher, dancing mythologist and storyteller, practicing astrologer, social artist and creative ceremonialist. His current project is to utilize the many outer planetary alignments of the 2020’s as occasions to create new holidays and festivals that open spaces for alternative futures and social realities. He serves as an assistant professor of Interdisciplinary Studies Naropa University, focusing on the intersections of equity and sustainability through courses on food and environmental justice. He also teaches foundations in contemplative learning and theory, embodiment, social identity, and conflict transformation. Ramon is committed to community, cultural and…
Rochelle Calvert
Rochelle Calvert, PhD, CMT, SEP, is a licensed clinical psychologist, ecodharma teacher, certified mindfulness teacher, and somatic experiencing practitioner. She has a devoted love to share the power and healing potential of mindfulness, somatic awareness and nature to heal trauma and to awaken and heal the Earth. She has studied and taught mindfulness for the past 22 years and knows personally the transformational potential. To share the love of these healing practices she has published a book Healing with Nature: Mindfulness and Somatic Practices to Heal from Trauma. Dr. Calvert leads courses and retreats in nature-based mindfulness, somatic experiencing and…
Sarah Heffron
Sarah Heffron, LCSW is a Buddhist Eco-Chaplain, lover of our planet, meditator of 30 years, and licensed clinical therapist dedicated to collectively reckoning with the immense suffering of this time and deepening our capacity for awakening into our fullest potential of wisdom, compassion, and joy amidst it. She has shared meditation and wisdom in the insight tradition for 24 years and has a private therapy practice in Moab, Utah. Mothering, gardening, exploring/hiking, engaging creatively with climate change, learning from Indigenous wisdom and the more than human world, and silence sustain and nourish her purpose.
Susie Harrington
Susie Harrington is the guiding teacher for Desert Dharma and Sky Mind Retreats, teaching both in the Southwest and internationally since 2005. She delights in teaching outdoors, knowing that nature nourishes the heart and inspires wisdom. She encourages, through silence and intimate presence, coming home to our embedded natural aliveness and belonging, and the freedom that is our natural state. Her roots are in the Insight tradition, having trained extensively with Jack Kornfield, Guy Armstrong, and Joseph Goldstein; she is also well practiced in the Tibetan and Diamond Heart traditions as well as in Hakomi Therapy. For more information: www.desertdharma.org.
Upasaka Upali
Upasaka Upali is a Dharma teacher who aims to demystify meditation, provide tangible instruction, and create a rewarding experience for practitioners. Upali received transmission in a lineage traced back to the Buddha through Namgyal Rinpoche (Ananda Bodhi), and he took his Upasaka vows in 2015. He has a degree from St. Olaf College and has studied Dharma and meditation with Tucker Peck, Ph.D., and Upasaka Culadasa. Upali was the founding director of Open Dharma Foundation and currently serves as the Board Chair for Center Space, a non-profit community meditation studio. He co-hosts the Teaching Meditation podcast and is a somatic…
Adjunct Leaders
“Choke”
“CHOKE” (she/her) is a self-taught artist of Taíno and Aztec ancestry and co-founder and director of The Mind Body Ecology Institute. She is also founder and CEO of Arté Tea Co., specializing in artistically curated teas and tisanes, along with tea ceremonial sittings and tea travel adventures around the globe. “CHOKE” stands for ‘Creating Her Own Kinetic Energy’. Her presence is deeply felt in communities throughout the U.S., from the Bay Area to southern Oregon and Florida to the greater metro area of D.C., Maryland, and Virginia, even to Fort Worth, Texas, a.k.a, Panther City, where she still keeps a…
Alex Julie
Alex Julie (he/him) is an Awake in the Wild meditation teacher, specializing in contemplative nature practice. He received EcoSattva training through One Earth Sangha, as well as EcoDharma training at the Rocky Mountain EcoDharma Retreat Center. He is a RYT-200 yoga instructor and has a background in regenerative economics and investing. He is a director of the Mind Body Ecology Institute. Alex is a PADI Rescue Diver, with over 25 years of experience. He is developing a first-of-its-kind Underwater Meditative Immersion program (UMI), launching in 2024. Alex draws his inspiration from wild spaces and believes our stories of separation from the Earth lie at the…
Alice Robbins (retreat manager)
Alice Robbins (Retreat Manager) – My life’s passion has been a calling to be of service to others and has taken form in many different capacities. My love of the wilderness drew me to meditation and the Dharma over 24 years ago when I attended an 11-day silent backpacking meditation retreat in the Sierra mountains. Since then, I found my place of service as a meditation retreat manager and have had the privilege over the past 20 years of managing meditation retreats in the wilderness and wild rivers of Colorado and Southern Utah, and more recently at Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat…
Asia Whitlock
Retreat Manager Asia Whitlock is passionate about building and sustaining people of color (POC) communities, decolonizing our minds, reparations by any means necessary, and growing her own foods. After several years in real estate, Asia co-founded Southwest Van Builders where she converts vans into tiny homes as an alternative housing solution. She currently lives in New Mexico. Asia is a two year alumni of People of Color Ecodharma Retreat and in summer 2022 stepped into the retreat manager role for these retreats which are co-hosted at least once a year by Boundless in Motion sangha and the Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat…
Bhava Jaya
Bhava Jaya embarked on his yoga journey in 2013, delving into Vinyasa flow classes for two years before earning his initial 200-hour yoga teacher certification at Dharma Yoga in Austin, Texas. The intensive training infused him with Buddhist dharma teachings and meditation practices, fueling his dedication to self-discovery and altruism. Following his intuition, Bhava relocated to Atlanta in 2017 to deepen his involvement in the wellness community. There, he obtained his second 200-hour yoga certification from Kashi Atlanta ashram and became actively engaged with Kashi Atlanta programs, including children’s art programs, yoga sponsorship for underserved populations, and aiding those grappling with…
Djuna Devereaux
Djuna is a core teacher and board chair for Sacred Mountain Sangha, supporting her primary Dharma teachers, Thanissara and Kittisaro. She teaches on retreats and daylong events at Spirit Rock Meditation Center and leads their Dharma and Yoga Teacher Training. Djuna is faculty for Prajna Yoga and offers workshops and teacher training internationally. She is also a certified yoga therapist and Somatic Experiencing Practitioner in private practice. Djuna’s teaching weaves asana training, with somatic movement, biomechanics, and the wisdom of yoga and the Buddha Dharma, into each offering. Her movement sessions are crafted to cultivate embodied awareness while supporting the…
Elaine Yeh
Elaine Yeh met Master Hua when she was studying computer science at the University of Texas in 1989 and was inspired to become his monastic disciple. During her 33 years as a Buddhist nun, she worked on translating Chinese Buddhist texts, served as principal at Instilling Goodness and Developing Virtue Schools, and taught at Dharma Realm Buddhist University. She earned an MA in Buddhist Classics from Dharma Realm Buddhist University and an MA in Asian Studies from UC Berkeley. In recent years she has been exploring how Buddhist and Western psychological approaches can work together to bring about deeper self-transformation…
Imtiaz Rangwala
Imtiaz Rangwala has been practicing meditation for ~20 years and is a lay meditation teacher in the lineage of Cold Mountain Zen. He is also one of the founding members of Boulder Ecodharma Sangha. Professionally, he is a Climate Scientist at the University of Colorado in Boulder where he provides climate science support to people managing our land, water and wildlife. He loves to nurture community through his love for cooking, gardening and sharing of songs and stories. He also greatly loves the outdoors and considers nature to be a very important teacher. Imtiaz was raised in the Islamic tradition of progressive Dawoodi…
Nicoya Helm (Assistant)
Nicoya Helm is a certified Unified Mindfulness Pathways coach and Mental Health First Aid Instructor. She began meditating in 1999 as part of recovery from a serious health challenge; now she offers mindfulness and mental health education to help others look deeper, dream bigger, and live better. Since 2018, she’s served as a lead instructor for multiple cohorts of Unified Mindfulness’s Pathways coach training program, a support instructor for Jansusz Wellin’s Progress of Shinsight course, and an associate teacher at Temple Buddhist Center of Kansas City. She is a regular facilitator at the University of Kansas Medical Center’s Turning Point…
Rashid Hughes
Rashid Hughes serves as the Lead Facilitator of the Inaugural Cohort of the Howard University Contemplative Justice Fellowship. Rashid is passionate about bridging the worlds of contemplative practice, spirituality, and collective care. He is a proud graduate of the Howard University Department of Music and the Howard University School of Divinity. Rashid is a certified Mindfulness Teacher, a certified Yoga Instructor, a Restorative Justice Facilitator, and is currently in training to become a Fire Pujari. Most recently, Rashid was selected to be a 2022-2024 fellow of the Garrison Institute and was also featured in the new groundbreaking project, gOD-Talk, a project…
Reggie Hubbard
Reggie Hubbard is the founder and Chief Serving Officer of Active Peace. He is a gifted strategist, teacher, and communicator with an innate ability to inspire change and simplify chaos. His work is guided by a commitment to truth-telling, healing, social justice, and holding space for transformation. His contemplative practices have been a refuge of peace and perspective while navigating the stresses of being a black man in the world and serving in pressure-filled jobs. He began yoga and meditation practices under extreme emotional distress at work. Through the blessing of ancestral guidance, consistent practice, and curiosity he offers peace…
Renee Sills
Renee Sills is a second generation astrologer, intuitive, somatic educator and practitioner, and the founder of Embodied Astrology – a community-based, hybrid platform exploring intersectional astrology and the synthesis and application of astrology with other forms of knowledge, healing and creating. The through-lines of their work involve ongoing investigations of inter-relatedness, spirituality, mindfulness, creative agency, and the adaptive processes and queering of human bodies and consciousness in times of apocalypse. Renee’s work weaves together and between the realms of astrology, mysticism, bodywork, healing ritual and participatory art. She seeks to proliferate (through all means possible) accessible, adaptable, embodied practices that…
Sarah Sampson
Sarah Sampson (she/her) is a social-emotional learning (SEL) educator, mindful movement teacher, ceremonial facilitator, and devoted student of life. Sarah is the founder of Art of the Circle, an organization that provides training and consulting to schools, businesses, and individuals using circling practices based in restorative justice, SEL, and mindfulness. Sarah is also co-founder and director of The Mind Body Ecology Institute. As the former Social-Emotional Learning Facilitator for Keller ISD, she led the implementation of equity-lensed SEL, restorative circles, and mindfulness-based activities in classrooms that serve over 35,000 students. Sarah is Founder and Director of the Dallas Movement Collective…
Yong Oh
Yong Oh serves as a teacher on the Dharma Council for the Durango Dharma Center and has sat on the board of directors since 2019. He is also a core teacher for Sacred Mountain Sangha. Yong began meditating through the Soto Zen tradition and eventually transitioned to study, practice, and teach in the Insight tradition. He teaches retreats at the Insight Meditation Society, Spirit Rock Meditation Center, Vallecitos Mountain Retreat Center, and Big Bear Retreat Center, as well as being a visiting teacher for other community centers across the US and Canada. Yong is a graduate of the 4-year Insight…
BACK TO TOP
A Chronological List, through November, 2024
Zen and Ecodharma Retreat (Sesshin)
With Kritee (Kanko) and Imtiaz Rangwala
The Body of Stars: Exploring Embodiment, Earth & Purpose through Astrology
With Ramon Gabrieloff-Parish, Renee Sills and Michelle Gabrieloff-Parish
Awakening the Heart of Love; Walking the Path of the Bodhisattva
With Heidi Bourne and Laurie Cousins
BACK TO TOP
Cultivating a Compassionate Heart
Awakening the Heart of Love; Walking the Path of the Bodhisattva
With Heidi Bourne and Laurie Cousins
BACK TO TOP
Finding the Right Retreat
We host over 30 retreats each summer, taught by over 30 leaders, and we invite you to explore our listings!
“Meet our Leaders” lists all of our 2024 teachers. Click on a leader to see the retreats they are offering.
‘View All Retreats’ is a chronological list of available retreats. Click on a retreat to see the retreat details.
We also list Core Themes of the retreats we offer. These themes are a very rough guide, so please peruse widely to make sure you don’t miss anything.
Core Themes
Ecodharma & Nature Retreats
Women, POC, LGBTQ+, Indigenous, Elders
Meditation Traditions
Grief, Trauma and Healing
Loving Kindness and Compassion
Activism and Social Justice
Accessibility. We endeavor to keep retreat prices as low as possible, and we offer scholarships to those with a genuine need.
Please let us know if there are ways we can help, by emailing [email protected]. We wish you a wonderful retreat!
Meet our Leaders
Find a meaningful connection – it makes all the difference!
Lead Teachers
Barry Gillespie
Barry Gillespie was introduced to meditation practice in 1978, through the Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Ashram. In 2003 he began exploring Theravada Buddhist practice, sitting many long retreats at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, MA and Spirit Rock in Woodacre, CA. His principal teacher is Guy Armstrong. Barry is an affiliated teacher with the Insight Meditation Community of Colorado (IMCC). He teaches mainly in Boulder and at the Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center.
Ben Connelly
Ben Connelly is a Soto Zen teacher and Dharma heir in the Katagiri lineage. He also teaches mindfulness in a wide variety of secular contexts and leads wilderness meditation retreats. He works with multifaith groups focused on intersectional liberation, racial justice, and climate justice. Ben is based at Minnesota Zen Meditation Center, travels to teach across the United States, has written for Tricycle and Lion’s Roar magazines, and is author of Inside the Grass Hut, Inside Vasubandhu’s Yogacara, Vasubandhu’s “Three Natures”, and Mindfulness and Intimacy.
Bianca Acosta
Bianca Acosta is a trained teacher of somatic Qigong, traditional ecological design and farming practices (best known as permaculture), and Ecodharma ceremonies at the Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center. She is originally from Zacatecas, Mexico and has been living in Colorado for over 17 years. She is proud of her indigenous roots and her life’s prayer is to be an active co-creator of a more beautiful world by sharing her gifts, being in synergetic relationships with Mother Earth, the diverse communities she is part of and embracing the multi-dimensionality of their being. She currently is in her last year of…
Blake Hestir
Blake Hestir lives in Fort Worth, Texas, the unceded sacred ancestral land of the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes. He is professor of philosophy and the associate director of CALM Studies at TCU in Fort Worth, Texas. He is director and co-founder of The Mind Body Ecology Institute and a member of the Flourishing Academic Network, and an advisor for the Dallas Movement Collective. His teaching and scholarship are in the areas of ancient Greek philosophy, philosophy of mind, and phenomenology, as well as ecology and contemplative research. His current work is a philosophical inquiry into how inner transformation may be cultivated through expanding worldviews,…
Carla Brennan
Carla Brennan, M.Ed., has trained in the Zen, Insight Meditation and Tibetan Buddhist traditions since 1975 and is an authorized Spirit Rock Teacher. She founded Bloom of the Present Insight Meditation (bloomofthepresent.org) in 2014. Carla also taught Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction for 18 years and is a former transpersonal psychotherapist. Currently, she teaches with Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach in the Mindfulness Meditation Teachers Certification Program (MMTCP) and with Cloud Sangha. Carla has spent many months in silent retreat including two monthlong solos in the wilderness. Her dharma approach emphasizes integrating wisdom into everyday life, releasing the qualities of the awakened…
Carol Kortsch
Carol Kortsch was born in Africa, educated in Canada, and then worked internationally building community in different forms. After 25 years in psychotherapy and group practice at Stonehaven Commons in Radnor, PA., she now offers nature-based retreats from Boulder, Colorado as a Courage & Renewal group facilitator. She is blending the Earth-based practices of Animas Valley Institute in a visionary program called ElderSoul. As a life adventurer and Earth listener, she recognizes our essential and critical human need to stop, slow down, and listen to our lives and all our relations speak. What we offer in these circles is a…
Caverly Morgan
Caverly Morgan is a meditation teacher, author, speaker, and nonprofit founder. Her new book, The Heart of Who We Are: Realizing Freedom Together through Sounds True is available here. She is the founder and Lead Contemplative of Peace in Schools—a nonprofit which created the nation’s first for-credit mindfulness class in public high schools. She is also the founder of Presence Collective, a community of cross-cultural contemplatives committed to personal and collective transformation. Caverly blends the original spirit of Zen with a modern nondual approach. Her practice began in 1995 and has included eight years of training in a silent Zen…
Cornelia Santschi
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…
Dave Smith
For over 30 years, Dave Smith has held a practice rooted in the Insight Meditation (Vipassana) tradition. He was empowered to teach through the Against the Stream Buddhist Meditation Society, is a certified teacher for Cultivating Emotional Balance (CEB) which is combines contemporary emotion based scientific research with contemplative practices and psychology drawn from Buddhism. Dave teaches residential meditation retreats, weekly live dharma classes, online courses, and workshops. He lives in rural Colorado with his wife and two sons.
David Chernikoff
David Chernikoff is a meditation teacher, spiritual counselor, and life coach who taught psychology and meditation at Naropa University for many years. A student of meditation since 1971, David completed the inaugural Community Dharma Leader Training at Spirit Rock Meditation Center and began teaching Insight Meditation in 1988. His teaching has been influenced by senior teachers from the Insight Meditation Society and Spirit Rock, Zen teacher Yvonne Rand, and spiritual guides from other contemplative traditions, most notably Ram Dass, Father Thomas Keating, and Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi. In the early 1980s, he worked at Ram Dass’s Hanuman Foundation Dying Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico…
David Loy
David identifies his spiritual roots as primarily in the Japanese Zen tradition. His Zen practice began in Hawaii in 1971 with Yamada Koun and Robert Aitken, and continued with Koun-roshi in Japan, where he lived for almost twenty years. He was authorized to teach in 1988 and has led retreats and workshops nationally and internationally in places such as Spirit Rock, the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies, the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center, Terre d’Eveil in Paris, and Dharma Gate University in Budapest. In 2014 David received an honorary PhD from Carleton College, his alma mater, for his contributions to socially engaged…
Emerson James
Emerson James (they/them) is imagining, articulating, and captivated by a world permeated with the possibilities of queerness. Nourished by contemplative practices, they find vocational calling in cultivating and offering skills in spiritual care and facilitation. After first being introduced as an undergraduate to the Church of the Brethren’s deep commitment to pacifism and social justice, they have been called to the particular role of spiritual practice and action in the transformation and expansion of cultures, systems and modes of awareness. They took to heart young Wendell Berry’s statement that one’s relationship with place is like all relationships, including that of…
Heidi Bourne
Heidi Bourne is a meditation teacher in the Insight Meditation tradition and is the founder and guiding teacher of Pacific Mindfulness. She has been teaching since 2005 offering classes, series courses, nature retreats, trauma-informed and resiliency-focused professional programs, and teaches regularly for Spirit Rock Meditation Center. She holds certification in mindfulness facilitation from UCLA, trauma resiliency from the Trauma Resource Institute, and is a member of the International Mindfulness Teachers Association. Heidi is especially interested in the integration of the common sense, accessible and timeless teachings of awareness, ethics, and compassion into the complexity of our everyday lives. She is…
Jade Sherer
Jade Sherer is a wild elder in the making, a “grief astronomer” (a la Andrea Gibson), and one who apprentices to death and joy. She has devoted her life to showing up to support others as they navigate the transitions of their lives, guiding others in nature-based transformational processes and ceremonies, a mentor to hundreds as they bring their integrity and authentic genius alive and accessible for the world. Jade was trained and then guided with Animas Valley Institute for 15 years and now works independently. (www.ItsOurNature.net) As an animist through and through, Jade’s particular passion is focused on listening…
Jane Seaton
Jane Seaton PhD., at just two and half years old, declared to her mother that she would teach art. She grew up to become both a multimedia artist and a creativity guide for others. Since 1973, Jane has taught hundreds of people from all walks of life how to reawaken and explore the many dimensions of their real artistic nature – often by allowing them to relax and let their hands and heart lead the way. Her teaching programs have varied from weekend workshops to five year training programs. Jane has also been in private practice as a transpersonal psychotherapist…
Jean Leonard
Jean Leonard, Ph.D. (she/her) is a licensed psychologist, dharma teacher, certified Mindful Self-Compassion teacher, and Buddhist Ecochaplain in private practice in Louisville, Colorado. Jean teaches mindfulness classes and mentors mindfulness teachers in training through Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach’s Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program. She has practiced yoga for over 30 years and vipassana meditation (primarily in the Theravada tradition) since 2003, and holds the Dharma as a sacred compass that guides her personal and professional life. Some of her primary teachers have included James Baraz, Gil Fronsdal, Dana DePalma, Thanissara and Kittisaro. She is currently participating in the two-year…
Johann Robbins
Johann has been meditating since starting with TM in college in 1974. He was asked by Eric Kolvig to begin teaching in 2008, and completed Community Dharma Leader teacher training at Spirit Rock shortly thereafter. His primary Insight teachers were Eric Kolvig, Joseph Goldstein, and Shinzen Young, and his primary Direct Path teachers were Adyashanti, Stephan Bodian, and Rupert Spira. Johann’s passion is spiritual practice in and with nature, and he has guided and taught wilderness meditation retreats for almost 30 years, including backpacking, camping, canoeing and solo Vision Quests. In 2016 Johann founded RMERC, where he served as unpaid Executive Director until 2022,…
Jon Aaron
A Dharma and Mindfulness teacher at New York Insight Meditation Center Jon first came across meditation in the 1970s, and then became interested in Insight and Mindfulness practices in the late 1990s, studying mindfulness meditation and Buddhism, which have since become central to his life. A Certified MBSR Teacher and Teacher Trainer, Jon trained in Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction with the Center for Mindfulness at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center and Brown University. In 2016 he completed his training with Breathworks in the UK and has integrated many of these techniques and modalities into all his teaching. He is…
Kaira Jewel Lingo
Kaira Jewel Lingo is a Dharma teacher who has a lifelong interest in blending spirituality and meditation with social justice. Having grown up in an ecumenical Christian community where families practiced a new kind of monasticism and worked with the poor, at the age of twenty-five she entered a Buddhist monastery in the Plum Village tradition and spent fifteen years living as a nun under the guidance of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh. She received Lamp Transmission from Thich Nhat Hanh and became a Zen teacher in 2007, and is also a teacher in the Vipassana Insight lineage through Spirit…
Kirsten Rudestam
Kirsten Rudestam (she/her) believes that practices of (re)connection are crucial in maintaining our capacity to face and respond to ecological loss and to embrace our inherent interbeing. Kirsten holds a Ph.D. in environmental sociology from the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she studied water policy and management, feminist political ecology, and environmental justice. She began practicing meditation in 1997, graduated from Spirit Rock’s Community Dharma Leaders program in 2005 and is currently in a four-year teacher training program with Andrea Fella and Gil Fronsdal of the Insight Meditation Center. She has taught meditation and dharma for Insight Santa Cruz,…
Kritee (Kanko)
Kritee (dharma name Kanko) is a Climate Scientist, Buddhist Zen priest, Educator & Founding Spiritual teacher of Boundless in Motion. She is an ordained teacher in the Rinzai Zen lineage of Cold Mountain and a co-founder of Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center. She has served as faculty for courses or retreats at the intersection of climate crisis, racial justice, trauma healing and spirituality for many organizations including One Earth Sangha, Al Gore’s Climate Reality, Stanford University, World Council of Churches, San Francisco Zen Center, Mind & Life Institute and Lama Foundation. She has served as a leading scientist in the Climate Smart…
Lama Rod Owens
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…
Laurie Cousins
Laurie Cousins is a mindfulness teacher, integrative somatic practitioner, and trauma-informed educator based in Los Angeles. Part of her education and training include the mindfulness centers of UCLA & UCSD and she teaches their signature evidence-based programs of Mindful Awareness Practices and Mindful Self-Compassion. Laurie is mentored by Susan Kaiser Greenland and a lead teacher of the International Inner Kids Collaborative. As a certified CRM Teacher of the Trauma Resource Institute and specializing in the field of trauma and addiction recovery for over 15 years, Laurie offers a holistic approach in her private practice through somatic-centered healing, compassion training, and…
Mark Coleman
Mark Coleman is an inner and outer explorer, who has devotedly studied mindfulness meditation practices for three decades and has taught mindfulness workshops and meditation retreats on six continents for the past twenty years. Mark is a senior meditation teacher at Spirit Rock Meditation Center and cofounder of the Mindfulness Training Institute. Mark is an unabashed nature lover and, through his organization Awake in the Wild, he leads wilderness meditation retreats integrating meditation and nature. Based on his book, Awake in the Wild, Mark leads year-long meditation-in-nature teacher training programs in the US. Mark also holds a MA in Clinical…
Peter Williams
Peter has practiced meditation for 29 years in the Theravada and Tibetan Buddhist traditions. He has done more than 31 months of silent retreat. He has taught insight meditation (mindfulness) since 2003 and has completed the Community Dharma Leader training through Spirit Rock Meditation Center. Peter teaches retreats and dedicated practitioner groups based in Longmont, CO. He has taught mindfulness to diverse audiences, from Colorado juvenile justices to school teachers to environmentalists. He is one of the founders of the Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center in the mountains near Boulder, CO. Peter has been practicing as a transpersonal psychotherapist since 2007,…
Piero Falci
Piero Falci teaches Mindfulness Meditation and Mindful Living. He is certified to teach the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program, the Center for Mind-Body Medicine (CMBM) model, and Mindfulness in Schools (MiSP) programs for teenagers. He received his MBSR teacher training at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, and at the Brown University School of Public Health. He is a board member of the Academy of Heart and Mind and the organization’s Representative on Sustainable Development to the United Nations. Piero has written several books, including the book series “A Better Life in a Better World,” and has created a variety of courses on how to apply mindfulness…
Ramon Gabrieloff-Parish
Ramon Gabrieloff-Parish Ramon Gabrieloff-Parish is a lifelong star gazer, Afrofuturist philosopher, dancing mythologist and storyteller, practicing astrologer, social artist and creative ceremonialist. His current project is to utilize the many outer planetary alignments of the 2020’s as occasions to create new holidays and festivals that open spaces for alternative futures and social realities. He serves as an assistant professor of Interdisciplinary Studies Naropa University, focusing on the intersections of equity and sustainability through courses on food and environmental justice. He also teaches foundations in contemplative learning and theory, embodiment, social identity, and conflict transformation. Ramon is committed to community, cultural and…
Rochelle Calvert
Rochelle Calvert, PhD, CMT, SEP, is a licensed clinical psychologist, ecodharma teacher, certified mindfulness teacher, and somatic experiencing practitioner. She has a devoted love to share the power and healing potential of mindfulness, somatic awareness and nature to heal trauma and to awaken and heal the Earth. She has studied and taught mindfulness for the past 22 years and knows personally the transformational potential. To share the love of these healing practices she has published a book Healing with Nature: Mindfulness and Somatic Practices to Heal from Trauma. Dr. Calvert leads courses and retreats in nature-based mindfulness, somatic experiencing and…
Sarah Heffron
Sarah Heffron, LCSW is a Buddhist Eco-Chaplain, lover of our planet, meditator of 30 years, and licensed clinical therapist dedicated to collectively reckoning with the immense suffering of this time and deepening our capacity for awakening into our fullest potential of wisdom, compassion, and joy amidst it. She has shared meditation and wisdom in the insight tradition for 24 years and has a private therapy practice in Moab, Utah. Mothering, gardening, exploring/hiking, engaging creatively with climate change, learning from Indigenous wisdom and the more than human world, and silence sustain and nourish her purpose.
Susie Harrington
Susie Harrington is the guiding teacher for Desert Dharma and Sky Mind Retreats, teaching both in the Southwest and internationally since 2005. She delights in teaching outdoors, knowing that nature nourishes the heart and inspires wisdom. She encourages, through silence and intimate presence, coming home to our embedded natural aliveness and belonging, and the freedom that is our natural state. Her roots are in the Insight tradition, having trained extensively with Jack Kornfield, Guy Armstrong, and Joseph Goldstein; she is also well practiced in the Tibetan and Diamond Heart traditions as well as in Hakomi Therapy. For more information: www.desertdharma.org.
Upasaka Upali
Upasaka Upali is a Dharma teacher who aims to demystify meditation, provide tangible instruction, and create a rewarding experience for practitioners. Upali received transmission in a lineage traced back to the Buddha through Namgyal Rinpoche (Ananda Bodhi), and he took his Upasaka vows in 2015. He has a degree from St. Olaf College and has studied Dharma and meditation with Tucker Peck, Ph.D., and Upasaka Culadasa. Upali was the founding director of Open Dharma Foundation and currently serves as the Board Chair for Center Space, a non-profit community meditation studio. He co-hosts the Teaching Meditation podcast and is a somatic…
Adjunct Teachers
“Choke”
“CHOKE” (she/her) is a self-taught artist of Taíno and Aztec ancestry and co-founder and director of The Mind Body Ecology Institute. She is also founder and CEO of Arté Tea Co., specializing in artistically curated teas and tisanes, along with tea ceremonial sittings and tea travel adventures around the globe. “CHOKE” stands for ‘Creating Her Own Kinetic Energy’. Her presence is deeply felt in communities throughout the U.S., from the Bay Area to southern Oregon and Florida to the greater metro area of D.C., Maryland, and Virginia, even to Fort Worth, Texas, a.k.a, Panther City, where she still keeps a…
Alex Julie
Alex Julie (he/him) is an Awake in the Wild meditation teacher, specializing in contemplative nature practice. He received EcoSattva training through One Earth Sangha, as well as EcoDharma training at the Rocky Mountain EcoDharma Retreat Center. He is a RYT-200 yoga instructor and has a background in regenerative economics and investing. He is a director of the Mind Body Ecology Institute. Alex is a PADI Rescue Diver, with over 25 years of experience. He is developing a first-of-its-kind Underwater Meditative Immersion program (UMI), launching in 2024. Alex draws his inspiration from wild spaces and believes our stories of separation from the Earth lie at the…
Alice Robbins (retreat manager)
Alice Robbins (Retreat Manager) – My life’s passion has been a calling to be of service to others and has taken form in many different capacities. My love of the wilderness drew me to meditation and the Dharma over 24 years ago when I attended an 11-day silent backpacking meditation retreat in the Sierra mountains. Since then, I found my place of service as a meditation retreat manager and have had the privilege over the past 20 years of managing meditation retreats in the wilderness and wild rivers of Colorado and Southern Utah, and more recently at Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat…
Asia Whitlock
Retreat Manager Asia Whitlock is passionate about building and sustaining people of color (POC) communities, decolonizing our minds, reparations by any means necessary, and growing her own foods. After several years in real estate, Asia co-founded Southwest Van Builders where she converts vans into tiny homes as an alternative housing solution. She currently lives in New Mexico. Asia is a two year alumni of People of Color Ecodharma Retreat and in summer 2022 stepped into the retreat manager role for these retreats which are co-hosted at least once a year by Boundless in Motion sangha and the Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat…
Bhava Jaya
Bhava Jaya embarked on his yoga journey in 2013, delving into Vinyasa flow classes for two years before earning his initial 200-hour yoga teacher certification at Dharma Yoga in Austin, Texas. The intensive training infused him with Buddhist dharma teachings and meditation practices, fueling his dedication to self-discovery and altruism. Following his intuition, Bhava relocated to Atlanta in 2017 to deepen his involvement in the wellness community. There, he obtained his second 200-hour yoga certification from Kashi Atlanta ashram and became actively engaged with Kashi Atlanta programs, including children’s art programs, yoga sponsorship for underserved populations, and aiding those grappling with…
Djuna Devereaux
Djuna is a core teacher and board chair for Sacred Mountain Sangha, supporting her primary Dharma teachers, Thanissara and Kittisaro. She teaches on retreats and daylong events at Spirit Rock Meditation Center and leads their Dharma and Yoga Teacher Training. Djuna is faculty for Prajna Yoga and offers workshops and teacher training internationally. She is also a certified yoga therapist and Somatic Experiencing Practitioner in private practice. Djuna’s teaching weaves asana training, with somatic movement, biomechanics, and the wisdom of yoga and the Buddha Dharma, into each offering. Her movement sessions are crafted to cultivate embodied awareness while supporting the…
Elaine Yeh
Elaine Yeh met Master Hua when she was studying computer science at the University of Texas in 1989 and was inspired to become his monastic disciple. During her 33 years as a Buddhist nun, she worked on translating Chinese Buddhist texts, served as principal at Instilling Goodness and Developing Virtue Schools, and taught at Dharma Realm Buddhist University. She earned an MA in Buddhist Classics from Dharma Realm Buddhist University and an MA in Asian Studies from UC Berkeley. In recent years she has been exploring how Buddhist and Western psychological approaches can work together to bring about deeper self-transformation…
Imtiaz Rangwala
Imtiaz Rangwala has been practicing meditation for ~20 years and is a lay meditation teacher in the lineage of Cold Mountain Zen. He is also one of the founding members of Boulder Ecodharma Sangha. Professionally, he is a Climate Scientist at the University of Colorado in Boulder where he provides climate science support to people managing our land, water and wildlife. He loves to nurture community through his love for cooking, gardening and sharing of songs and stories. He also greatly loves the outdoors and considers nature to be a very important teacher. Imtiaz was raised in the Islamic tradition of progressive Dawoodi…
Nicoya Helm (Assistant)
Nicoya Helm is a certified Unified Mindfulness Pathways coach and Mental Health First Aid Instructor. She began meditating in 1999 as part of recovery from a serious health challenge; now she offers mindfulness and mental health education to help others look deeper, dream bigger, and live better. Since 2018, she’s served as a lead instructor for multiple cohorts of Unified Mindfulness’s Pathways coach training program, a support instructor for Jansusz Wellin’s Progress of Shinsight course, and an associate teacher at Temple Buddhist Center of Kansas City. She is a regular facilitator at the University of Kansas Medical Center’s Turning Point…
Rashid Hughes
Rashid Hughes serves as the Lead Facilitator of the Inaugural Cohort of the Howard University Contemplative Justice Fellowship. Rashid is passionate about bridging the worlds of contemplative practice, spirituality, and collective care. He is a proud graduate of the Howard University Department of Music and the Howard University School of Divinity. Rashid is a certified Mindfulness Teacher, a certified Yoga Instructor, a Restorative Justice Facilitator, and is currently in training to become a Fire Pujari. Most recently, Rashid was selected to be a 2022-2024 fellow of the Garrison Institute and was also featured in the new groundbreaking project, gOD-Talk, a project…
Reggie Hubbard
Reggie Hubbard is the founder and Chief Serving Officer of Active Peace. He is a gifted strategist, teacher, and communicator with an innate ability to inspire change and simplify chaos. His work is guided by a commitment to truth-telling, healing, social justice, and holding space for transformation. His contemplative practices have been a refuge of peace and perspective while navigating the stresses of being a black man in the world and serving in pressure-filled jobs. He began yoga and meditation practices under extreme emotional distress at work. Through the blessing of ancestral guidance, consistent practice, and curiosity he offers peace…
Renee Sills
Renee Sills is a second generation astrologer, intuitive, somatic educator and practitioner, and the founder of Embodied Astrology – a community-based, hybrid platform exploring intersectional astrology and the synthesis and application of astrology with other forms of knowledge, healing and creating. The through-lines of their work involve ongoing investigations of inter-relatedness, spirituality, mindfulness, creative agency, and the adaptive processes and queering of human bodies and consciousness in times of apocalypse. Renee’s work weaves together and between the realms of astrology, mysticism, bodywork, healing ritual and participatory art. She seeks to proliferate (through all means possible) accessible, adaptable, embodied practices that…
Sarah Sampson
Sarah Sampson (she/her) is a social-emotional learning (SEL) educator, mindful movement teacher, ceremonial facilitator, and devoted student of life. Sarah is the founder of Art of the Circle, an organization that provides training and consulting to schools, businesses, and individuals using circling practices based in restorative justice, SEL, and mindfulness. Sarah is also co-founder and director of The Mind Body Ecology Institute. As the former Social-Emotional Learning Facilitator for Keller ISD, she led the implementation of equity-lensed SEL, restorative circles, and mindfulness-based activities in classrooms that serve over 35,000 students. Sarah is Founder and Director of the Dallas Movement Collective…
Yong Oh
Yong Oh serves as a teacher on the Dharma Council for the Durango Dharma Center and has sat on the board of directors since 2019. He is also a core teacher for Sacred Mountain Sangha. Yong began meditating through the Soto Zen tradition and eventually transitioned to study, practice, and teach in the Insight tradition. He teaches retreats at the Insight Meditation Society, Spirit Rock Meditation Center, Vallecitos Mountain Retreat Center, and Big Bear Retreat Center, as well as being a visiting teacher for other community centers across the US and Canada. Yong is a graduate of the 4-year Insight…
BACK TO TOP
A Chronological List, through November, 2024
Zen and Ecodharma Retreat (Sesshin)
With Kritee (Kanko) and Imtiaz Rangwala
The Body of Stars: Exploring Embodiment, Earth & Purpose through Astrology
With Ramon Gabrieloff-Parish, Renee Sills and Michelle Gabrieloff-Parish
Awakening the Heart of Love; Walking the Path of the Bodhisattva
With Heidi Bourne and Laurie Cousins
BACK TO TOP
Cultivating a Compassionate Heart
Awakening the Heart of Love; Walking the Path of the Bodhisattva
With Heidi Bourne and Laurie Cousins
BACK TO TOP
RMERC Retreats
We are in the process of publishing our 2024 retreat listings. A few more will be available soon! For leaders interested in holding a retreat at RMERC, click here.
Click the title or photo for more information.
Please check back in mid January for postings of 2024 RMERC retreats
For the Lama Rod Owens Retreat in May, click for more information.
Zen and Ecodharma Retreat (Sesshin)
With Kritee (Kanko) and Imtiaz Rangwala
The Body of Stars: Exploring Embodiment, Earth & Purpose through Astrology
With Ramon Gabrieloff-Parish, Renee Sills and Michelle Gabrieloff-Parish
Awakening the Heart of Love; Walking the Path of the Bodhisattva
With Heidi Bourne and Laurie Cousins
