Meditation Retreat Schedule
March 3 – 8 Crestone, CO
Awakening Wisdom & Love Through Insight MeditationTeachers: Susie Harrington, Brian Lesage
Registration: opens in September
This retreat offers the unique opportunity to practice Insight Meditation at Blazing Mountain Retreat Center. Blazing Mountain is situated on the sacred land of Crestone, Colorado. The surrounding environment and beautifully designed meditation hall provide a spacious setting for practice. The comfortable accommodations and healthy vegetarian meals will nurture your well-being. Sponsored by, and more information available from the Salida Sangha.
New Year's Retreat
Dec. 27, 2017 – Jan 1, 2018 Salt Spring Island, BC
Teacher: Susie Harrington
Cost: varies based on choice of lodging from $630 - $347, plus dana (donation) for the teacher
Location: Stowell Lake Farm, Salt Spring Island, British Columbia
Info & Registration
We will retreat into the deepness of winter to appreciate and release the Old Year and welcome and anticipate the vision and renewal of the New Year. We will sink into the deep quiet of these darkest days of the year and celebrate turning once more towards the increasing light and warmth. On New Year’s Eve, you are invited to stay up until Midnight with a slow, gentle evening of sharing blessings, chants, words and quiet, treats, and candles. It is a lovely way to celebrate together.
Touching the Earth
July 26 – 30 Paradise, Utah
Teacher: Susie Harrington
Cost: 3-day option (7/26-7/28) $100-$140
5-day option (7/26-7/30) $140-$260
Info & Registration: Cache Valley Sangha
This residential retreat will be an opportunity to sit and walk in silent meditation practice in a lush pastoral setting. Looking deeply into the heart of our experience, we will examine the habits of mind that cause us to suffer. When we bring our compassionate attention to moment to moment experience, our hearts and minds relax and we can access freedom, contentment and well -being.
This retreat will take place primarily outside, with camping or bunk house accommodations available. In addition to sitting and walking meditation, there will be dharma talks, meetings with the teachers, chanting and mindful movement. Those new to meditation and those with experience are welcome.
Gratitude & Generosity: Realizing the Abundant Heart
A weekend non-residential retreat
December 7 – 8 Spirit Rock, Woodacre, CA
Teacher: Susie Harrington
Info (and registration when open)
In this weekend retreat, we will practice and inquire, exploring the natural flow of giving and receiving that is the source of all connection, all life, and an expression of the fundamental truth of interconnection.
February Monthlong
February 1 – 29 Spirit Rock, Woodacre, CA
Co-Teachers: James Baraz, Kamala Masters, Tempel Smith, John Martin, Beth Sternlieb
Info (and lottery when open) at spiritrock.org.
Applications for the lottery will be accepted Tuesday, July 16, 2019, to midnight Saturday, August 31, 2019. You do not need to apply on the first day it opens.
An extended period of retreat offers the rare opportunity for sustained and dedicated practice. This retreat emphasizes quieting the mind, opening the heart, and developing profound clarity and depth of insight practice. Instruction will follow the traditional four foundations of mindfulness, combined with training in loving-kindness and compassion, through a daily schedule of silent sitting, walking, dharma talks and practice meetings with teachers.
Escalante Wilderness Backpacking Retreat
Full with a waitlistDates: April 12 – 18
Teacher: Susie Harrington
Info & Registration
This retreat is an opportunity to "return home" to our true, wild nature to deepen our practice. Immersed the extraordinary wilderness of Escalante in Utah and in the quiet of our meditation practice, we will open ourselves to the interconnectedness, preciousness, and beauty of our true nature. Sitting in the beauty of canyon country gives us ready access to rapture, that quality of delighted interest and awe, and one of the seven factors of enlightenment.
From Compassion to Action
An online daylong retreat of meditation and wise response
June 28, 9:00 - 4:00 MDT
8 - 3:00 PDT, 10 - 5:00 CDT, 11 - 6:00 EDT. Zoom familiarization for those who desire half hour before start.
Teachers: Susie Harrington and Kirsten Rudestam
Cost: $40 - $100 ($10 fee for admin costs, the remainder is offered in support to the teachers. For this retreat, 50% of teacher fees will be donated to organizations in support of Black Lives Matter) No one will be turned away for lack of funds.
Compassion is the wholesome expression of the open heart when it meets the suffering of our world. To know compassion is to care – to feel our connection with other people and with the more-than-human world. In these times we are asked to come to terms with the devastating effects of our racial history, our environmentally disastrous greed, and the immediate difficulties of Covid-19. It is in facing these challenges that our hearts can know both our tenderness and our strength. There is the natural desire to feel both compassion and to relieve the suffering.
In this daylong retreat, we will explore through meditation, dharma talks, connection with others and engaged practice, how to know and allow the natural movement of our hearts. There will be periods of silent practice as well as invitations to take action, such as making a phone call, writing a letter, donating to a cause, and finding your own inspiration to act. Through mindfulness, we will explore the emotions, resistances, hindrances, and wholesome qualities that arise in considering and enacting compassionate response. What arises when we are moved to do something, to move off the cushion, out of silent meditation and take our practice into action?
Below are some race resources you can begin to look at. Prior to the retreat, we will send additional resources on other topics, and the zoom link. We ask that you spend 30 minutes prior to the retreat exploring responses in a topic that moves you.
75 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice
Resources for Accountability and Actions for Black Lives
Anti-Racism Resources
2026
IMS Nature Sangha
Online Dharma Talk, Meditation, and DiscussionJuly 7, 2026
Teacher: Susie Harrington
Venue: Zoom
More information and enrollment
Susie Harrington will be offering a dharma talk and discussion on July 7th as part of the ongoing Nature Sangha for Insight Meditation Society. Nature Sangha is a monthly gathering that explores nature as Dhamma, practicing in nature, ecological activism, climate grief and more. Sessions may include guided meditation, reflection, Dharma discussion and an opportunity for questions and responses. This online gathering is open to anyone inspired by and drawn to practicing in and with the natural world.
Let the Beauty We Love Be What We Do
A Poetry and Meditation RetreatJuly 18 – 19, 2026
Teachers : Susie Harrington and Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
Venue: Online
More information and registration
Join eco-dharma teacher Susie Harrington and poet Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer for two days of possibility and reality. What is the world we want to live in? Many of us right now are living in a reactive state to the harm and suffering of our planet and its inhabitants. Here is an invitation to enter together into a creative state, to imagine the world of beauty, generosity and integrity we know is possible, and then to choose to live into it. During this two-day online retreat, both meditation and poetry practice will be woven into our days, with periods of instruction, silent sitting, and time to write and share what we have written and discovered. No previous experience in meditation or poetry is required to participate.
Revolutionary Dharma: Conversations for Uncertain Times
July 26, 2026
Teachers: Susie Harrington interviewed by Deborah Eden Tull
Venue: Zoom
More information and registration at here
Susie Harrington will join Deborah Eden Tull for a night of conversation and community as part of Revolutionary Dharma’s monthly series of intimate conversations with visionary teachers, activists, and thought leaders who are expanding the boundaries of what it means to nurture collective liberation in an age of polycrisis.
Rooted Like a Tree
A Nature Retreat Exploring Ease and EquanimityJuly 28 – August 1, 2026
Teacher: Susie Harrington
Venue: Mount St. Francis Retreat Centre in Canada
This retreat is full. Join the waitlist at Calgary IMS
Sitting outside on the beautiful Mount St. Francis grounds, nestled in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, we will explore the stillness and ease found in knowing we are deeply embedded in all things. We will follow in these footsteps as we sit, walk and deepen our own relationship with ease, stability, and loving-kindness.
Touching the Earth Nature Retreat
September 1 – 30, 2026
Teachers: Susie Harrington and Jaya Rudgard and Mia Monos assisting
Venue: Forest Refuge, Barre, Massachusetts
This retreat is full. Join the waitlist here.
On this month-long retreat, we will have the opportunity to connect our dharma practice with the natural world. The Buddha practiced, became enlightened, taught, lived, and died outdoors—and throughout history, Buddhist practice has been intimately connected to the natural world as a teacher, a place of practice, and a refuge. Fundamental to our time together is the understanding that through mindfulness and presence, the natural world can be our teacher. Our sitting, walking, dharma talks, and instruction will be outside. The forest, the meadows, and the open sky will be our meditation hall. You will have the opportunity to practice while sitting on a bench near others on the Forest Refuge’s decks, or to find a quiet place along the extensive trails to practice alone in the woods. When weather conditions are less supportive, we will sit in the meditation hall. The instructions and dharma talks will provide context, invitation, and skillful means for deepening your nature practice. Support and guidelines will be offered to address concerns about the challenges of practicing outside.
Awake in the Wild
Exploring Wisdom and Awakening in NatureOctober 8 – 15, 2026
Teachers: Susie Harrington and Mark Coleman
Venue: Vallecitos Mountain Retreat Center in New Mexico
This retreat is full. Join the waitlist here.
This retreat will be spent meditating entirely outdoors in the natural beauty and mystery of the Vallecitos Mountain Retreat Center near Taos, New Mexico. Whether it is during sunset meditations, listening to the soothing sounds of the river, or sitting graced in the stillness of the aspen trees, we will open to the profound serenity and wisdom of nature. On the retreat there will be guided nature-based meditations, mindful walks, Dharma talks on meditation and nature, and group meetings with the teacher. There will be time to relish in the silence outdoors and to explore the wilderness of Vallecitos both as part of the group and also in plentiful solo practice time.
2027
New Year’s Retreat
December 31st, 2026 – Jan 1st, 2027
Venue: Online (via Zoom)
Teachers: Susie Harrington and Denise Ackert
More information and registration to come.
During this two-day online retreat, there will be sitting and walking meditation, meditation instructions and dharma talks. This retreat is open to all – those with experience and those new to practice.
Bowing to Gaia: Dancing with the Aliveness of All Beings
A 7-day meditation retreat on the Big Island of HawaiiFebruary 3 – 10, 2027
Teachers: Susie Harrington and Deborah Eden Tull
Venue: Hawaii Island Retreat in Kapa’au, Hawaii
More information and registration
Our Earth bodies are part of the natural feedback system of all of life, from the micro to the macro, from the visible to the invisible. Beyond anthropocentrism, Buddhist meditation expands our recognition of embodied interdependence. On this retreat, practicing with the body and the elements as our entry way, we will explore the radical gift and responsibility of interdependence. Held at the beautiful Hawaii Retreat Center on the Big Island, overlooking the ocean, this unique retreat will be held in noble silence. In addition to meditation and dharma talks, it will also include music, guided somatic practice and movement, inquiry in small groups, and ritual. Recognizing our embedded belonging, we will explore our deep reverence and responsibility in caring for Gaia and her myriad beings.
March Insight Meditation Monthlong
A Silent Meditation RetreatMarch 1 – 28, 2027
Teachers: Susie Harrington, Guy Armstrong, Tuere Sala, Mei Elliott, Kodo Conlin, Kirsten Rudestam, Teresa Todoroff (Movement Teacher)
Venue: Spirit Rock Meditation Center, Northern CA
More information and registration at Spirit Rock.
In this retreat we will explore the nature of awareness in three stages. We'll begin by developing greater stability of mind through mindfulness of breathing. Next we'll introduce a regular practice of lovingkindness, allowing the beautiful and responsive qualities of heart to unfold. Then, with these foundations, we'll start to explore the nature of awareness—this mysterious capacity of knowing. These practices open the door to emptiness, profound understanding, and great freedom.
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Insight Meditation
A six-day residential retreatMay 23 – 28, 2027
Teachers: Susie Harrington and Denise Ackert
Venue: Vallecitos Mountain Retreat Center in New Mexico
More details and registration to come.
This retreat will be spent meditating outdoors in the natural beauty and mystery of the Vallecitos Mountain Retreat Center. Whether it is during sunset meditations, listening to the soothing sounds of the river, or sitting graced in the stillness of the aspen trees, we will open to the profound serenity and wisdom of nature. This silent retreat is grounded in the practice of Mindfulness—the capacity to be present to our inner and outer landscapes.
Retreat in Northern California
A Meditation Retreat in NatureJune 8 – 29, 2027
Teachers: Susie Harrington
More information on this annual three-week retreat available December 1st, 2026
Buddhist Eco-Chaplaincy Retreat
For program members onlyJuly 18 - 24, 2027
Teachers: Susie Harrington, Gil Fronsdal, Kirsten Rudestam, Ram Appalaraju
Finding Refuge, Finding Home
A Retreat in NatureAugust 19 – 26, 2027
Venue: Spirit Rock Meditation Center
Teachers: Susie Harrington, Yong Oh, Denise Ackert
Assistant Teachers: Lissa Edmond, Mario Castillo, and Kate Siber
More information and registration at Spirit Rock.
In the storms of our lives, we need refuge—a place of nourishment and support where we can replenish our tired bodies and troubled hearts. When the Buddha taught meditation, his first instruction was to go sit under a tree. We will practice together in the age-old tradition of being outside in the company of the natural world. Together, we will tap into the natural stillness and dynamism that surrounds us and teaches us balance. As we integrate stillness and movement, we move toward being active participants in the world while maintaining balance and ease in our hearts and minds.
This retreat is silent except for teacher-led Q&A, small groups, or other practice meetings.
Pecos Retreat
A residential retreatSeptember 8 – 15, 2027
Location: Pecos Monastery, Our Lady of Guadalupe Abbey, Pecos, New Mexico
Teachers: Susie Harrington and Brian Lesage
More info to come
For more nature retreats with other teachers, please go to the Sky Mind Retreats website.