Elemental Pilgrimage: Awakening Through Intimacy with Trees, River, and Sky
With Anne Cushman and Erin Selover
September 3 - 8, 2026
In these times of profound uncertainty, connect with the wild land of Vallecitos—and the sensuous, elemental terrain of your own embodied life—to deepen what the Buddha referred to as “the unshakeable freedom of the heart.” Like the heartwood of an ancient tree, this inner refuge supports a grounded, embodied confidence to meet this moment with courage, creativity and care.
Within the container of Noble Silence, we will explore essential dharma practices that awaken intuitive wisdom and deepen our felt relationship with the natural world. Each day we’ll make a meditative pilgrimage to a different landscape, each offering a unique balance of earth, water, sun, and wind—such as a still pond, a ponderosa grove, a moonlit meadow, a stream sparkling over stone. In these living temples, we will cultivate mindful, heartful presence through all our senses, in movement and stillness, while opening to the dharma wisdom that is speaking through each place.
Central to our daily rhythm will be spacious time for your own intuitive forms of deep listening: attuning to wind through aspen leaves; honoring the ebb and flow of grief and joy; watching the clouds move across the sky and the thoughts move across the mind. As you feel into the interconnected, ever-changing ecosystems of your inner and outer worlds, you can come to know your true nature as not separate from pine, eagle, and waterfall.
Cancellation Policy:
- 45 days prior to retreat: Full refund, minus a $150 nonrefundable fee
- 44-22 days prior to retreat: 50% refund
- 0-21 days prior to retreat: No refund
Teachers
As a teacher and writer, Anne Cushman explores the intersection between embodied meditation, creative expression, the natural world, and the down-to-earth details of the human journey. A practitioner of both dharma and yoga since 1982, she is a retreat teacher at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, core faculty for Spirit Rock’s Dharma Yoga Mindfulness Training, and a guiding teacher and director of mentoring for the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program. She is the author of the memoir The Mama Sutra: A Story of Love, Loss, and the Path of Motherhood; the novel Enlightenment for Idiots; the spiritual India travel guide From…
Learn more about Anne Cushman
Erin Selover, MS, is a Licensed Therapist, Strategic Coach and serves on the Teachers Council at Spirit Rock Meditation Center. As a meditation teacher, Erin integrates systemic and cultural factors of oppression into teachings on mindfulness and compassion that are often only taught from an interpersonal and intrapersonal lens. With a passion for systemic change, Erin’s teachings broaden the field of mindfulness to look at the how Buddhist teachings can help us understand systems of oppression such as patriarchy, white supremacy, and modern economics. Through supporting students to see factors that contribute to their pain as part of a larger…
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