The Abolitionist’s Dream: A Journey through Love, Healing, and Liberation (Online)

This is the ONLINE component of the retreat. If you’d like to apply for the RESIDENTIAL component, please click here.

We are living through an apocalypse, struggling to learn lessons through a pervasive pandemic, economic instability, political unrest, climate change, and various forms of systematic violence. However, this moment is also inviting us back to an authentic indigeneity. We are being asked to remember how to be in relationship to the land, to our broken heartedness, and in gentle healing relationships with others. In the face of so much change we may find it difficult to maintain our physical and emotional balance.

We invite you to join Lama Rod Owens and Sister Siofra at Wonderwell Mountain Refuge or online via Natural Dharma Fellowship’s interactive hybrid system as they bring forward a deeply embodied, justice-rooted approach to liberation that draws from Buddhist practice, earth-based traditions, and lineages of collective healing.

In this retreat, we will explore both personal and collective liberation through somatic based mindfulness practice, grief work, chanting, and prayer. We will explore themes of spiritual abolition, liberatory care, grieving as care work, as well as what it means to be a love centered agent of liberation in this moment. We will rely on the wisdom of Tantric Buddhism, African spirituality, the Black Prophetic tradition, American Indigenous traditions, and sacred herbalism to understand and experience that any state of freedom must center tending to our broken hearts while calling real joy to hold the labor.

Please join us to:

• Explore grief and broken-heartedness as pathways of healing and transformation
• Engage chanting, prayer, and ritual as supports for personal and collective liberation
• Return to an authentic relationship with your body through somatic mindfulness, movement, and breath as a foundation for liberatory care
• Deepen your connection with the land and the more-than-human world

This retreat offers a precious opportunity to engage these teachings in a supported, practice-centered environment—one that honors both the depth of what we are facing and the possibility of real transformation. Whether you are seeking renewal, community, or a deeper way of meeting this moment, this retreat offers a grounded and compassionate container for practice. We invite you to join us. All are welcome.

Typical Retreat Schedule

(All times are Eastern time zone)

First Day — Opening session begins around 7:00 pm.

Full-Day Schedule — Morning meditation 7:00 am; Breakfast break 8:00-9:30 am; Lunch break 12:00-2:00 pm; Dinner break 5:30-7:00 pm.

Last Day — The closing session typically ends by 12:00 pm.

These times are just for reference. An expanded schedule will be provided in pre-retreat information emailed during the week prior to the event.

Zoom Link

The Zoom link will be sent several days before the retreat to all those registered. If you register after that date, you’ll receive the link with your confirmation email shortly after submitting your registration. If you don’t see an email from Natural Dharma Registrar or Wonderwell Mountain Refuge, it may have mistakenly gone to your spam folder or to Promotions or Updates in Gmail.

Important: Please put these this email address in your Contact or Safe-Send list to make sure you receive our emails:

• register@naturaldharma.org

Program Cost

Our program fees provide essential support to our non-profit operations and NDF’s mission to spread the Dharma in accessible, relevant, and creative ways. Our goal is that no one misses out on our events due to lack of funds. Thanks to our generous donors, we are able to offer tiered pricing and additional support to fit varied financial situations: 

• May All Beings Benefit! *– supporting access for all and general support for NDF operations
• A Middle Way – covering the base cost
• Held in Sangha Loving-kindness – offering ease when financial resources are limiting

If the lowest cost tier creates an obstacle to your attendance, please see our financial support options on the registration page. The process is simple and does not require extensive information. Financial aid is immediately approved using discount code options that allow you to contribute the most you are able while honoring your particular resources.

* The difference between the May All Beings Benefit! tier and the Middle Way tier will be considered a tax-deductible donation and will be acknowledged as such in writing. Contributing at this level helps us offer financial aid to other participants. Thank you!!

Access to Recordings

NDF offers unlimited access to recordings, which are available in your user dashboard (more information about user accounts provided in pre-retreat materials). If you have a user account, please register with the same email you use to log into your dashboard. If not, an account will be created for you using your registration address.

Availability will vary depending on the type of event and the backlog for our precious resource volunteers. Thank you for your patience.

Natural Dharma Fellowship Full Calendar