Deadline for Application is June 30th, 2026
We must prepare for a “polycrisis,” that goes beyond the climate crisis and encompasses multiple interdependent global risks that significantly degrade humanity’s prospects. Increasing frequency and severity of climate disasters are an integral part of the deepening polycrisis and they reveal both our fragility and interdependence. This retreat is the first in a series of three designed by Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center (RMERC) to support the cultivation of community resiliency and responsiveness in states around Colorado as disasters and chaos will unfold in our communities in the decades to come. We need to be prepared for fires, floods, catastrophic winds, droughts, and other more slowly unfolding stressful events not just in 2025-2030 but in 2040-2050 and beyond.
Finding deep refuge in the beauty and wisdom of the land and the dharma teachings, we will rest, replenish, and tend to our nervous systems. We will introduce spiritual and emotional resilience practices, and cultivate the capacity of the heart. After accessing groundedness, restorative nourishing connection, and trust with each other and the more-than-human world, we turn towards our grief and rage. We hold space for all our feelings, name them, accept them, and if we feel so called, release them. We will build a nourishing, loving, and supportive beloved community together.
Our programming will also include a day of “Solo: Nature Kinship Day.” We will spend a contemplative day “alone” in the natural world, allowing ourselves to come into a deep sense of visceral connection, belonging, and communion with rocks, trees, waters, and all other beings on RMERC land as our relatives or kins.
We have a broader vision beyond just this retreat. Before and after the retreat, we will host online gatherings so that participants may build and maintain a web of belonging as we all respond to and serve our communities through polycrisis. This retreat will welcome back several members of the sangha who participated last year and will expand our sangha to invite a few additional locally and regionally based participants. We hope that all first-year participants will return for future retreats with this community and join the ecodharma-sangha.
**This retreat is intended to be offered at little to no cost. Food and lodging for this retreat is fully funded by the BESS Family Foundation. There will be a small registration fee for administrative costs which can be reimbursed post-attendance for students, activists, BIPOC, under-resourced, and working-class, other marginalized or under-represented groups. If needed, there are travel support scholarships available especially for Indigenous participants who are original stewards of Colorado. In the spirit of mutual care, we will invite voluntary donations (dana) at the end of this retreat to support leading teachers.
