Application for Restoring Connection: A LGBTQIA2S+ Community Dhamma Retreat in Nature
With Victoria Cary, René Rivera and Kuan Luo (Trainee)
September 1 - 7, 2024
Join us for a six-night silent retreat in LGBTQIA2S+ community on the beautiful land of Vallecitos. Supported by the natural world, the Dhamma, practice and each other, we will reconnect with our belonging and essential goodness as LGBTQIA2S+ people. We will ground in the elements as a way to understand our nature and wholeness.
We will offer Dhamma talks, meditation, guided exploration on the land, heart-centered practices, and chanting. These practices will be offered mostly outdoors, in a container of silence and nurturing spaciousness, making the way for us to reconnect with ourselves, nature, as well as deepen our connection to community.
This retreat is appropriate to all practitioners new and experienced. We offer priority registration for BIPOC, Trans, Non-binary, and Gender Non-conforming participants.
This is a retreat for the LGBTQIA2S+ community. If you do not identify as such, we are happy to help you find another Vallecitos retreat.
APPLICATION PROCESS: (Please read until the end.)
Registration for this retreat is by application. Within the application review process we are curating additional variables to encourage greater equity, diversity, inclusion, and access for our many popular retreats. To create an optimal retreat container, some of these factors include affinity group membership, age, gender balance, and experience level.
Registering for a lottery or completing an application does not ensure a space in the retreat. Applications received after February 5th are automatically placed on the waitlist and will be notified of availability on a rolling basis. Notifications often move quickly so we recommend checking your email regularly. Please note that you will be asked to complete your registration details and pay your retreat fees within 48 hours of your offer to attend. If you are in need of financial assistance to attend, you will be invited to complete a scholarship application once you have been accepted and completed your registration.
We recognize that this is an imperfect system and we have carefully considered valuable feedback from many of you in designing our registration system for this year. If you have questions about this new registration process, please contact Jan at refuge@vallecitos.org or by calling 505-469-9017.
COVID Safety Measures: Please review our current COVID Safety Measures, which are subject to change.
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
Kuan Luo (she/her) is a Chinese-American mindfulness and meditation teacher and outdoor educator. She believes spiritual awakening and psychological maturity need each other to fully support healing and transformation in this time of unprecedented change. She guides and facilitates the development of awareness and interpersonal skills in groups and with individuals. She teaches online as well as out-of-doors, and is an apprentice of nature, dharma, and ancestral living skills.
Learn more about Kuan Luo (Trainee)