the mountain retreat

The days on retreat follow a simple, steady rhythm that's designed to support you in going deep, without overwhelming you.

You'll start each morning with a meditation session, followed by breakfast. The morning then has two sessions with a break in between, and the afternoon mirrors that shape: two more sessions with space to rest, walk, or sit with what's coming up. The day closes with an evening session.

Sessions are a mix of:
Dharma talks — teachings from Jennifer to frame and deepen your practice
‍Guided meditation instruction — learning and refining specific techniques
‍Group practice in the temple — sitting together in a shared energy
‍Solo practice — taking your practice into nature

There will be extended periods of silence, especially mid-week — not as something to endure, but as the thing that makes the depth possible. There will also be time built in for one-on-one support with Jennifer, so you're never left to navigate things on your own.

This is not a fully silent retreat. That said, we will be using silence as a tool, and there will be periods of extended silence (especially mid-week). That intentional silence will be one of the things that makes this retreat so powerful and deep.

But there will also be lots of connecting. Dharma talks, workshops, time to ask questions, one-on-one time with Jen. And you can always come to Jen if anything is coming up and you need to talk through it.

The first thing to know: Silence on a retreat isn't the same thing as silence at home. Being on your own in your kitchen with nothing to do for two days is one thing. Two days of silence in the mountains, on a clear schedule, with a practice and a teacher to guide you, is something completely different.

The silence also isn't an absence of something — it's the active ingredient. It's where the depth comes from. People who worry about it beforehand are often surprised by how fast it stops feeling hard.

And finally, you won't be alone with it. If you hit a wall or have anything coming up, you can always come and talk to Jen. And there will also be significant non-silent stretches across the week where you can connect with the rest of the group.

This is our first every non-psychedelic offering, so you might be curious who it's for, and how it fits into our psychedelic work.

First of all, the big difference is that this retreat is very much focused on meditation, and using meditation as a practice for personal exploration. While our psychedelic retreats are mostly focused on helping give people deep therapeutic experiences through psilocybin, this is more about giving you an experience of what's possible through meditation.

This will be a smaller, more intimate group, with a major focus on meditation. There will be a mix of Dharma talks, workshops, group meditation, and solo meditation (as well as one-on-one support from Jennifer).

If you're dealing with a sense of overall stuckness in your life, or have specific trauma or issues that you want to work through in a way that will go extremely deep and give you a breakthrough experience, it might be time for a psychedelic retreat.

If you're interested in meditation and want to go truly deep into your practice — whether you're new to it or have been practicing for years and want to dive all the way in — this retreat is for you.

It's also a good fit if psychedelics aren't your thing right now, or aren't ever going to be.

Two main types: concentration practices, which build your ability to focus and stay with one thing, and open-awareness practices, which train you to be present without getting caught up in your thoughts.

Across the week, you'll move between group sessions, solo practice, instruction, and Dharma talks.

No. Some exposure to meditation helps — even a few weeks of using an app or sitting through a workshop — but you don't need a daily practice or years behind you.

But you definitely have to be ready to go deep. This is going to be quite an intensive retreat, so you should know that going in.

On the other side of things, if you are an experienced meditator, this will definitely give you a level of depth beyond what you can achieve on your own at home, so don't worry that it will be too "beginner" for you.

Part of this is also down to the structure of the retreat. The group is small — eight people maximum — so Jennifer can pay attention to what's coming up for each person. You'll have one-on-one time with her across the week, alongside group Q&A. And a meaningful chunk of the practice is solo, so although the schedule is shared, much of the week ends up being your own.

While there are definitely Buddhist elements that will be part of this retreat, it is not a purely traditional Buddhist retreat.

The setting is a working Tibetan Buddhist hermitage, Jennifer trained in that tradition, and the meditation practices come from it. There will be Dharma talks across the week — short teachings on how to approach the practice and what it can open up.

But you don't have to be Buddhist (or want to be) to do this retreat. The focus will be on the practices, not on any sort of religious framework you need to buy into.

If you're curious about Buddhism or are practicing yourself, you'll find plenty to engage with.

If you're not, the meditation and silence are the heart of the week, and they're complete on their own.

You can't be bad at meditating, we promise. You can misunderstand what it is (many people do) which is why so many people who've tried it think they've failed.

Falling asleep, a wandering mind, not being able to focus, getting bored, hating it for stretches: none of these mean you're bad at it. They're descriptions of what the practice can feel like for almost everyone.

Most of what makes meditation hard at home isn't a skill problem. It's that you're trying to do it on your own, without proper teaching, surrounded by all of the other things that want your attention. A week of formal retreat changes all of that.