Healing with Nature - 5 Day Meditation Retreat

Join an international team of facilitators for Healing with Nature: Mindfulness and Somatic Practices to Heal Personal and Global Traumas

We are in some of the most challenging times in human history. Learning skillful means to support healing the traumas of this life, personal and global can bring wholeness, liberation, and a new sense of vitality to living in life and healing the Earth.

This nature-centered mindfulness meditation retreat is an opportunity to heal, re-connect and re-emerge into a greater sense of wholeness. Through this retreat we will explore how nature-based practices and somatic experiencing can support healing and transformation of challenging or traumatic experiences.  We will cultivate a sense of embodied interconnectedness and relationship with the natural world to support fully engaging in life and with the healing of the Earth.

Bodhi Khaya Nature Retreat center is situated at the foot of the Witkransberg Mountain with many beautiful milkwood and fynbos trails to explore. We will have an opportunity to study, practice, and integrate the wisdom of these teachings in the community.  There will be time to relax and reflect, as well as opportunities to be led on nature meditations, reflective journaling exercises and beautiful hikes. It will be a time to strengthen your ability to heal, transform trauma, and live more fully.

What you will love:

• Guidance and instruction in all of the actives described above
• Sitting, walking, and play time in beautiful wild setting
• Free time for rest
• Evening “community-building” and celebration
• One-on-ones with the teachers
• Delicious plant-based meals, and tea and coffee
• Your choice of lodging: single room or outdoor tent site

Example of Daily Schedule:

6am wake up bell

6:30 Meditation

7:15 Breakfast

8:30 Morning Program

12:00 Lunch

12:30-2pm Free Time

2pm Afternoon program

5pm Dinner

6pm Evening program

8:30-9pm Ready for Bed/Sleep

What you should know:

• Our retreat is designed to be enjoyable, not rigorous … and participants are expected to have an open mind and heart as we build our community and share experiences together:
• There will be a flow between alone time and group time, but come prepared to enjoy others, and participate in community and group activities.
• Use of silence: every effort is made to support a deep and fruitful retreat, and noble silence can be a valuable part of the process. We will weave periods of silence into the retreat at strategic times, to allow you to go deeper within.
• We will all share in the community work around cleanup. You will be able to choose your helper/yogi job. Most participants find serving others in this way quite enjoyable, and a great opportunity for practice in action.
• Some mindfulness experience is valuable but not required, and beginners are welcome. Complete mindfulness instructions will be given, appropriate for your level.
• No background understanding with individual or global trauma is necessary. There will be time to learn, explore and understand ways to be in relationship to what these types of traumas are, as well as safe and supportive practices to heal.
• If you choose to camp, then some camping experience (car camping or backpacking) is helpful, but not required.
• You should be in good health, able to sit and walk outdoors, tolerate the elevation, and smile through sudden weather changes

Teaching Staff

Rochelle Calvert

Rochelle Calvert, PhD, CMT, SEP, licensed clinical psychologist, certified mindfulness teacher, somatic experiencing practitioner has a devoted love to share the power and healing potential of mindfulness, somatic awareness and nature. She has studied and taught mindfulness for the past 20 years and knows personally the transformational potential. To share the love of these healing practices she has published a book Healing with Nature: Mindfulness and Somatic Practices to Heal from Trauma.

Dr. Calvert leads courses and retreats in mindfulness, somatic experiencing and Awake in the Wild, nature-based mindfulness. She also facilitates professional trainings in mindfulness for clinicians and travels the U.S. teaching retreats and seminars. She is the director of the Ecotherapy Program at SouthWestern College and New Earth Institute in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She is a certified mindfulness teacher with the Mindfulness Teaching Institute, the International Mindfulness Teachers Association and Awake In The Wild organization.

Greg Crespo

Gregory Crespo is an Awake in the Wild nature meditation teacher, having trained with Mark Coleman to learn to foster a rich sensitivity and connection to the natural world through mindfulness and contemplative practices. He has led retreats and workshops and finds sharing mindfulness and nature practices with others to be a rewarding and inspiring part of life. He believes deeply that nature can be a healing and supportive element of meditation practice and that—for our own health and for the health of our planet—we as a species desperately need to reconnect with nature.  Gregory is also a husband, father, veteran, and civil rights attorney.

Leslie Butterfield

Leslie Butterfield has been meditating since 2005,  when she sat her first silent retreat as part of a school project. Since then she has committed her life to practice in one form or another, with her most recent work revolving around the highs and lows of motherhood.  Leslie is a certified mindfulness teacher with the Mindfulness Training Institute and teaches mindfulness individually and in group settings. She finds great joy in helping young people and adults to discover that the tools to find lasting peace and ease are already present within each of them.