Dear Friends,

I hope that you and your loved ones are staying well, living with some measure of ease. We know that the pandemic continues to devastate our communities and that this time also brings forth courage, determination, and love. I am sending you waves of gratitude for the goodness you bring to our world, knowing that your presence carries the potential to make a difference in ways both seen and unseen.

After careful consideration, Vallecitos will be cancelling all scheduled retreats on the land for the 2021 season. While this is a loss on many levels, I trust our decision as a wise and responsive choice to support our guests, teachers, staff, and far beyond.

We continue to honor nature’s rhythms, displayed in part as the organic pace and process of Vallecitos. In this spirit, we will not be moving all of our retreats online. We are curating a small number of online offerings throughout 2021 to support you and your practice this year.

Because of you, Vallecitos can and will weather this second season of closure.

I am deeply grateful for your support of Vallecitos and our beloved sangha. I look forward to being on the land with you again in 2022. Meanwhile, the land rests, and rests, and rests. May you also rest in the ways that bring you balance and peace.
 

Yours in the Dharma,
Erin Treat, Guiding Teacher

For days.

I sat there in waves of grief and gratitude.

Not really meditating.

Just giving this oversaturated body/mind/heart what it called out for.

Awake to the privilege that made this rest possible… 

I slept-in.

I watched the horizon, and soaked in birdsong.

Danced with the shimmering ponderosas in the wind.

Took-in the thunderous presence of Wild Horse Canyon.

There were so few of us humans on the land. And the deer sensed that space.

As a mama and her fawn nested by my casita, I realized what I was seeing.

The wild was reclaiming her place. 

This visit to the land was so different than the “pre-times.”

In the pre-times, I’d turn off onto that familiar, bumpy road (heart upwelling!), and go straight into teaching, into a meeting, or into retreat.

This… was a first.

This time, I brought a cooler and a camp stove. Some matches and a sleeping bag.

I cooked my meals and boiled water.

This time, I stepped out into thinner air and my body moved toward the land’s day-to-day stewards, Katya and Katie… Muscle memory that couldn’t be honored. An ache at the heart for keeping a distance.

I visited Vallecitos five times this year, to connect with staff and the land, both to work and to rest. Each time, the understanding of my white skin privilege soaked deeper. Understanding crossed the boundaries of these cells, deep into the matrix of my bones.

By pure accident of birth, I am of the White dominant class. Spared the violence Black and Brown bodies meet every day. And responsible for dismantling it.

Even with the protection of happenstance (…and design), the suffering of the world pierced that protective shield and took its toll on me.

I really needed to rest. And Vallecitos gave me that gift.

You may be hearing that call to rest. Or perhaps you did back in March when our world grinded to a halt.

Like me, some of you were able to heed the call. Some of you were forced into a state of non-doing that was a far cry from rest, some of you lost your jobs and have been out of work in a way that you did not choose. And for some of you — the nurses, EMTs, service workers, doctors, journalists, social workers, those who come from or care for vulnerated people — life turned up the volume. 

Too loud to take it all in.

A cacophony.

Parents became teachers.

Lovers became caregivers.

The elderly and immunocompromised were told, Shore-up your supports, but keep your distance.

Many faced intense loneliness and overwhelm.

Inequities rose.

Black and Brown people rose higher.

And now the anticipation of a certain Tuesday is weighing on my heart. Yours too, I imagine.

We are living in a time in which the thin veil of U.S. democracy is being lifted by the sweat, blood, and tears of Black, Indigenous, and Communities of Color. It’s in front of our eyes. (White friends,) Are you taking it in?

Even in this vortex of uncertainty and groundlessness, you and I… we’ll keep rising. 

As a White woman who aspires to behave as an ally in each moment, I acknowledge that our roles in this uprising depend upon our lineages, and how our minds and bodies are doing.

BIPOC friends, it’s not my place to tell you your right role. What I can share is that I want Vallecitos to be a place where you can feel a deep welcome to cultivate the practices that bell hooks puts forth,

Awareness is central to the process of love as the practice of freedom.

What that means for you is yours alone. As Guiding Teacher, it is my deepest aspiration to build a refuge that offers you space for that exploration.

The poet Ruth Forman’s words embody so much of what I want to say to you in this moment:

i wish you abalone dreams

i wish you peace

i wish you doves in your kitchen

moonlight in your bathroom

candles when your eyes close and dawn when they open

i wish you so many arms across your shoulders

so many lips kissing your ears that you smile from the inconvenience

i wish you all your babies’ love attacking the center of your heart

just so you know they are there

…and, if you want, a warm cushion, chair, or floor space at Vallecitos when we can be together again.  

On the land and off the land, on the cushion and off the cushion… we will continue to rise to the undoing, the unlearning, and the space-making, the heart/mind decluttering that fertilizes a new groundcover to spread. With great devotion, we will unearth a way of being with ourselves and each other and this Mother Earth that we can’t yet conceive of. And in the meantime… we will grow our capacities to become warriors for Mother Earth.

One way we’re doing this is to make sure that Vallecitos is still here and ready for your return. Will you consider contributing to this effort?

Volunteers have been coming to the land to raise up the East Cabin. They’ve been planing felled trees and making them into new beams so that this historic structure can continue to be of use for our beloved staff. Board members have been on hands and knees digging individual thistles out of the ground — that’s what (organic) land stewardship looks like! And it looks like you sustaining Vallecitos through this uncertain period by offering a gift that is personally meaningful.

And as we prepare to gather again, it looks like me and the Vallecitos leadership sharing with the sangha about the First Peoples who put markings on the ponderosas that greet us. Making Vallecitos’ history whole by acknowledging the Ute and the Jicarilla Apache who stewarded this land for thousands of years before White settlers stole it. It looks like building and tending an altar –when we can gather on the land there again– that acknowledges these Peoples, the lineages that we teach from, and the lineages we come from.

Would you put your hand to heart and ask what you can offer to keep Vallecitos intact? For those of you who are struggling to pay rent and put food on your table, this request isn’t for you. Deep bows for enriching this sangha with your practice and your you-ness.

For those of you who have the means to offer a gift to this place of refuge, please do. Will you give a gift in the name of learning how to live with a responsive heart? I’m asking because your generosity… it’s needed.

As we grieve the suffering and anticipate the future with fear, will you join me in holding the joy, too? Let’s rejoice, even for a single moment, in the beauty of our sangha and the sacred gifts of the land. Help this beauty live on today with a gift.

With love,

Erin Treat, Guiding Teacher

P.S. I miss the power of what happens when we’re on wild land together. I grieve that as we move forward, the “when” of our future gathering is still unknown. I miss practicing with you, being under the ponderosas with you, taking you on the Upriver Trail. Please consider giving so that we can gather again at Vallecitos.

I will re-call the names of black transpeople, women, and men whose names we don’t yet know, who have been brutalized and killed by police and white vigilantes. I will stand with your families and communities in our commitment to work to end systemic racism in our country, and white supremacy in our very own hearts.

Ibram X. Kendi on How to Be an Antiracist

1. Join “Evening Dharma” with beloved Vallecitos teacher Brian Lesage on Sunday, May 31st at 5 Mountain / 4 Pacific / 7 Eastern.
2. Awakening a Fierce Feminine Buddhism: A Four Week Intensive for Practicing in Daily Life with Pamela Weiss, Tuere Sala and Jozen Gibson
3. Awake in the Wild: A Supported Home Retreat with Mark Coleman and Christine Lustik

In my heart, I hold the land and, sometimes, I can feel the land of Vallecitos holding me. The land of the Ute and Jicarilla Peoples. The land that is home to so many beings that are coming alive this time of year – the herons, the osprey, the deer, elk and wild horses to name a few.

While we can’t be on the land, we can still come together for upcoming online offerings.

Wishing you, our beloved sangha, much peace and protection now and in the days to come.

We are in conversation with each teaching team about offering alternatives. For some there may be an invitation for a radical pause. For some, it may look like a daylong, or even a home retreat. 

Within the next few weeks, registered and wait-listed folks will receive an email regarding your cancelled retreat. If you are experiencing financial hardship and need a refund immediately, please get in touch with Melissa at refuge@vallecitos.org. If you are in a position to donate all or a portion of your fees to Vallecitos, we will graciously accept your support during this trying time.

For alternative offerings open to the whole sangha, we’ll send you an email or you can check our website.

For those of you registered (and on waitlists) for retreats, we will email you regarding the status of your retreat as we know more. We will also be posting updates on retreats, online dharma offerings, and events here.

We want to stay connected with you during this time. Stay tuned for more Wednesday Evening Dharma with Vallecitos teachers and sangha. Subscribe to our listserve to receive announcements.

Vallecitos is a place like no other. We exist to provide refuge that grounds you, connects you with Mother Earth, and supports liberation of body, heart, and mind. Retreats at Vallecitos are a vital support for the well-being of so many, and we want to ensure safety and health for all. Thank you for your support and your practice.

With gratitude,

Erin, Jessica, and the Vallecitos Team