Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.
— Leonard Cohen

Registration has closed for this event. If you'd like to be notified of future offerings, drop me a line at dahlia@beloved.org and I'll add you to my email announcement list. It is low traffic, and I will never give your information to anyone else. There is space available in the live weekly meditation Gatherings during September and October if you wish to join!

Beloved friend, I am offering an 8 week remote meditation retreat for prior students of my Home Meditation Course (HMC). I want this retreat to meet you wherever you may be and offer you healing, peace and reflection. It's okay if you are out of the groove of practice. It's okay if your heart is breaking. This is why we retreat.

If this would be your first HMC, or if you've taken one but want fundamentals again, please join us for HMC17: The Light Inside, an All-Levels offering with a new 10-15 minute long guided meditation every other day and a weekly circle.

The Sangha Retreat is something new, supporting and encouraging your meditation practice while offering you opportunities for emotional processing in these challenging times. Some people live solo, are not working, and would love to spend a ton of time engaged with practice; others work full time from home while supporting remote learning for three children, but yearn for solace nourishment, and sangha (spiritual community). The course is designed to work for all of you. The format will have strong thematic structure and great flexibility in practice. I will be available to help you strategize about what suits you best.

How will we retreat virtually? By emphasizing emotion and creativity. We will spend two weeks with each of the retreat’s four elements: Gratitude, Mourning, Connection, and Sparks. Meditation is the heart of practice, so there will be a new 20-30 minute guided recording for each element. Whether you choose to use that recording is up to you. Maybe instead you'll find yourself wanting to commit to doing metta bhavana for 8 weeks, or to sitting very briefly twice daily to resolidify the groove of your practice, to walking meditation while you hold the baby, or to dancing in the kitchen to your favorite pop song before anyone wakes up everyday. I will offer options, and you are free to practice as you wish.

You will also be invited to creative expression of the elements. I will offer suggestions for a wide range of possibilities and the choice of what suits your heart and your time will be your own. Perhaps for Gratitude, you'll compose a beautiful thank you note to someone who has touched your life. You might keep a gratitude journal, or think words of thanks over your food. Maybe you'll just blow a kiss to the sunset and take one deep, cherishing breath each evening. You may choose one thing or many, simple or elaborate. Sharing, too, will be as you wish: a link to a video you made of twirling wildly to your favorite goth Mourning song? A photo of the tiny altar you made with a single photo of your beloved grandmother which you set a flower from the yard upon? Or perhaps you'll, just say, “I did some work with myself, it was useful, thanks” or  “I’m having trouble getting in touch with this.”

HMC18: Sangha Retreat

September 2 through October 28
8 weeks
$400-300, sliding scale

Register by emailing me: dahlia@beloved.org. After I confirm your registration, payment will be made via PayPal. If you need to discuss a lesser cost or payment over time, please ask. Payment above the asking price to help fund scholarships for others is always warmly welcome, and particularly so now, with people out of work at historic levels.

What is the time commitment?  The time you choose to invest in practice and in creating your Circle post every other week; I wish to be as flexible as possible.

Community Standards: This course will gather in community. To ensure safety for all members, I wish to be clear: liberation is the heart of this work, and social justice is integral to human liberation. Black Lives Matter here. I will be asking people for their preferred pronouns. If you aren’t sure why this is important, I’d be delighted to discuss it with you so we can decide if this course will be appropriate for you.

Giving Back: 5% of this course's proceeds will be donated in gratitude for the teachers who have nourished my practice. The Loveland Foundation was started by Rachel Cargle; we’ll be giving to their Therapy Fund to provide financial assistance for therapy to Black women and girls. CARE India has worked for 70 years toward alleviating poverty; we’ll be supporting their educational programs for girls in honor of the Indian roots of yogic teachings.

Structure:

  • The retreat has only 20 places available. We will all belong to a Google Group for communication.
  • The retreat will have four elements. We will spend two weeks each with Gratitude, Mourning, Connection, and Sparks. For each element there will be a 20-30 minute guided recording and a set of creative possibilities for exploring and expressing, as described above.
  • There will be a Circle every week, opening Sunday, with replies due by Wednesday at noon Pacific Time. You will be invited to share once for each two-week element. This is new, so I am going to repeat it: the circle is weekly, so there will be a steady thread there to opt into for nourishing reading. You will be invited to share and receive a reply every other week, a total of four times. My intention is to create a structure that allows us to gather in strength, do deep work, be seen and heard, receive guidance and love, with profound flexibility, and a low minimum bar for participation. I aim for less reading, more practice, than in the foundation-building courses.
  • There will be an optional live meditation gathering via Zoom each week. Participation is optional; a potential delight, not an obligation. You will be able to see me! I will not be able to see you!  I will not be able to see you!  Four will be on Wednesdays, four on Saturdays, alternating each week. All will be from 8 to 9 a.m. PT.
  • As always, after the course the materials remain yours for your personal use. They may not be shared without my explicit permission. If it's been a while since your last Home Meditation Course, I hope you'll be delighted to learn that I no longer email the recordings as attachments; each course now has a dedicated page on my website where you can download files at your convenience.

Email me at dahlia@beloved.org to reserve your space or touch in with any questions!