Heart Connection: A LGBTQIA+ Community Metta Retreat in Nature
With Victoria Cary and René Rivera
August 20 - 27, 2025
Join us for a seven-night silent retreat in LGBTQIA+ community on the beautiful land of Vallecitos. This year we will immerse ourselves in the heart practice of lovingkindness, or Metta, supported by the natural world, the Dhamma, and queer community. We will build a continuity of practice together cultivating this friendliness towards ourselves, others, and ultimately towards all beings. In this practice we will reconnect with our belonging and essential goodness as LGBTQIA+ people.
We will offer Dhamma talks, still and walking meditation, guided exploration on the land, and chanting. These practices will be offered mostly outdoors, in a container of silence and nurturing spaciousness, making the way for us to connect with ourselves, nature, as well as deepen our connection to community.
This retreat is appropriate to all practitioners new and experienced. We encourage BIPOC, Trans, Non-binary, and Gender Non-conforming participants.
This is a retreat for the LGBTQIA+ community. If you do not identify as such, we are happy to help you find another Vallecitos retreat.
Cancellation Policy:
- 45 days prior to retreat: Full refund, minus a $150 nonrefundable fee
- 44-22 days prior to retreat: 50% refund
- 0-21 days prior to retreat: No refund
Teachers
Victoria Cary has been practicing Insight Meditation and studying the Dharma since 2006. In 2017 she completed Spirit Rock’s Community Dharma Leader program and went on to become a fully empowered Dharma Teacher. In 2016 she co-founded the San Francisco People of Color Insight Sangha and continues as one of the core teachers. She is a San Francisco Bay Area Native. She left her workplace of 20 years in 2017 to deepen into the Dharma. Since then she has spent time in and out of intensive silent meditation practice, including a 3-month retreat at IMS, 6-week amd 3-month retreats at…
Learn more about Victoria Cary
René Rivera is a meditation teacher, restorative justice facilitator, and leader, working and learning in all the spaces in-between race, gender, and other perceived binaries, as a queer, latinx, trans man. René teaches heart-centered, trauma-informed meditation, at the East Bay Meditation Center and other meditation centers. He has co-led the first residential meditation retreats for transgender, nonbinary and gender expansive people. René is a restorative justice facilitator for the Ahimsa Collective, working to heal sexual and gender based violence.
Learn more about René Rivera