It is strongly recommended that you organize yourself so that you can turn your phone and computers off for the duration of any retreat. It is only a few days, and it is a RETREAT, meaning you do not bring your whole technological existence in with you. As part of this dedication to presence and awareness, cameras, iPods, phones, computers or other electronic devices are not welcome during session and integration times. This limitation will quickly reveal addictive behaviors and the associated fears that are wonderful grist for your process. However, this technology-free opportunity is more than just that. It is an invitation to let go of reliance on external technologies so that you can remember the powerful ways the heart can communicate across distance and time, so you always feel connected.

Awakening consciousness means opening to the natural flow of your energy. Sometimes this can feel very sexual. In this culture, the tendency is to move sexual energy as an outward expression, acting it out rather than exploring the inner experience and building a strong container for the creative lifeforce. THERE IS TO BE NO SEXUAL CONTACT, EXPLICIT LANGUAGE OR NUDITY IN GROUP SESSIONS. You are welcome to be intimate in the privacy of your own room or wait until the session has finished and then go play. This limitation encourages you to create container for yourself and to be sensitive to the needs of others in the work. Sexual behavior in group sessions does affect everyone whether you are aware of it or not and, given the extent of abuse, incest and lack of clear boundaries so many people have suffered in their tender formative years, we are exploring new learning environments not trying to recreate the wounds of the past.

The Nature of the Ways

The depth of the work expands to fit the time available, and over the course of a retreat, you can really let go. Intensive retreats allow you to dive deeply into many experiences that cannot be reached in ordinary sessions. You can meet the expectations that demonize your life, unravel ancient tangled relationships and emotions, face difficult life decisions, develop and deepen an unassailable relationship with the source of love, learn to play in many realms, alter the course and direction of your life and experience the healing of connections in community.

Direct experiences of Nature can change the very fabric of our being by both provoking some of our deepest fears and by providing direct, clear resolution of human dilemmas. Nature has vast intelligence, and her wisdom and beauty feed our hearts and souls in the most essential and continuous of rhythms, with greater capacity than even the most loving of human beings. The spiritual power of Life, of Nature to heal our wounded hearts and minds is most profoundly augmented through our ceremonies together.

Nature also knows the pace and pathways of our individual healing processes, and if we can slow down enough, we will feel the disconnections and shadowed places of our beliefs and behaviors that keep us separate. As we work with what emerges, it becomes natural to reconnect, listen, give back and feel our way through our pains to the sense of belonging and wholeness that is home.

The direct experience of the interconnectedness of all species, the wondrous web of life in balance with death, is a powerful balm for the loneliness and isolation that is at the core of human suffering. When we open to the communications Life has always shared with us through landscapes, animals, plants, rocks and dirt, weather, wind and water, we not only reclaim our natural states of joy and freedom, we awaken our receptivity to the complete, integral support Nature provides for us. Everything we need comes from the Earth and the Sun, and direct connection with both satisfies us in all the ways we still long for completion. We become one with the world that is one with us.

Group intensives give you concentrated time to share the richness of growing consciousness in community with fellow journeyers. The interplay of relating opens new possibilities as we face our past, distorted lenses of judgments of others and penetrates the tortuous illusions of lack of love. Retreats provide rich fields of play in the exploration of what it takes to consciously care for yourself and others. The truly natural web of connection that is created supports us into the cutting edge of our evolutionary experiment towards greater humanity, compassion and wholeness.

Everyone’s journey is unique. Intensive retreats are deeply unsettling and may not be appropriate for everyone. There are times when a more gentle approach to transformation may be far more effective. There are usually disturbances, both exciting and frightening, that arise when you do such deep work. People often do make life-changing moves in home, work and with relationships after intensives and, if you are not quite ready for that, then it is really OK to wait for the time of your true calling.

Your life also needs to have a certain amount of flexibility to allow additional time for continuing the integration process, sometimes for weeks (if not for months and years). It is recommended that you arrange additional physical support during traveling, plan gentle activity levels afterward and organize some body work upon your return home.