A Solstice Retreat
Coming Home:
June 12 - 15, 2025
Goldendale, Washington
“We are living in mythic times…”
~ Kwame Scruggs
These times of great upheaval call us to seek our truest path.
To listen well, we must step away from the noise…
Returning to center is a devotional practice.
We clear a space in the din of our lives,
create a boundary,
and humbly ask
to be shown the way.
We have inherited great strengths from our ancestors,
gathered wisdom from our mentors and teachers,
and the earth gifts us daily with precious jewels.
We need only reach out…
I invite you to reach out if this retreat calls to you.
This retreat draws on two reverent practices to help us create sanctuary and reclaim those gifts through community, meditation, silence, and deep listening to the great wild earth.
Quest:
To take time to be in nature to listen,
return to natural rhythms,
seek guidance
Homecoming:
To return to right relationship
with self, community, and
the world
Quest
Quest is a time for silent contemplation with the land. In many cultures and most religions throughout time, humans have practiced taking time in silence, away from the village, to go be with nature and seek guidance.
In our modern world, the noise of machines, screens, busyness, extroversion, and land exploitation, this practice has become rare and difficult to achieve. The opportunity to meet on land stewarded for this purpose, supported by others who have been in relationship with this practice, is rarer still.
This retreat will offer the opportunity for a gentle, customized, trauma-informed introduction to the practice. Participants will be offered a day and a half of silent time on the land, followed by an optional community dinner in silence with an evening meditation practice. Those seeking a longer silence may take nearly 2 days. Please see proposed intinerary for more information.
The Seven Homecomings
The Seven Homecomings practice, taught by Lama Rod Owens, is based in the Buddhist practices of loving kindness, self compassion and finding refuge, or home, in our “jewels.” These are our wisdom guides and mentors, texts and creative expressions of wisdom, and our own spirit and soul communities where we practice unconditional love.
Lama Rod’s teaching expands from the three traditional jewels to four more: finding refuge in, and welcome from, our benevolent ancestors and lineages, the earth herself, silence and finally ourselves.
These Seven Homecomings are evoked and experienced in a guided meditation that grounds itself in the earth, and the support available through each Homecoming, creating a container of care for you to take on your Quest.
Logistics
Accomodations:
Bring your own van, tent, sleeping bag, hammock - we will be sleeping on the land. Equipment may be available to borrow or rent if needed
Location:
Private land near the Columbia River Gorge, approximately 2 hours from Portland.
Meals:
Thursday ~Potluck dinner
Friday ~ Breakfast and snacks provided
Saturday ~ Snacks and dinner provided
Sunday ~ Breakfast provided
Cost:
$450 - $650 Sliding Scale
Potential Flow:
Thursday:
Poluck dinner and meet and greet, select and set up camps
Opening ceremony, orientation to Quest and Seven Homecomings Practice
Friday:
9am breakfast
Morning meditation, intention setting, and altar making
Seven Homecomings practice
1pm ~ Quest begins
*** On your own ***
Saturday:
Optional silent dinner and community Seven Homecomings practice
Sunday:
9am Welcome back ceremony
Breakfast and sharing circle
Land Service
Closing ceremony
Depart by 2pm
HOW TO REGAIN YOUR SOUL
Come down to Canyon Creek on a summer afternoon
that one place where the valley floor opens out
You will see
the white butterflies. Because of the way shadows
come off those vertical rocks in the west, there are
shafts of sunlight hitting the river and a deep long purple gorge stright ahead. Put down your pack.
Above, air sighs the pines. It was this way when Rome was clanging, when Troy was being built,
when campfires lighted caves. The white butterflies dance
by the thousands in the still sunshine. Suddenly anything
could happen to you. Your soul pulls toward the canyon
and then shines back through the white wings to be you again.
- William Stafford