Overview & Site Location
Off-Grid Retreats is grateful to continue our collaboration with Retreat Teacher Rochelle Calvert to offer Healing with Nature, a nature-centered mindfulness weekend retreat. This will be our second time offering this retreat with Rochelle at the same site! The images above are from the September 2023 Healing with Nature Retreat.
Practice and connect in the beautiful landscape of the southern Sierra Nevada Mountains at River Ridge Ranch. This ranch is amidst the Tule River and a vital ecosystem of a 722 acre nature preserve of oak woodlands. Through this retreat, explore how nature-based practices, relational connection to the natural world, and somatic healing can support the transformation of challenging or traumatic experiences.
This retreat provides the opportunity for you to heal, re-connect and re-emerge into a great sense of wholeness. We welcome you to study, practice, and integrate the wisdom of these teachings into this community. Relax, participate in guided nature meditations, experience reflective journaling and enjoy beautiful hikes too. And the images below are from the site, River Ridge Ranch!
Retreat Program & Schedule
The retreat will reside at River Ridge Ranch in Springville, CA. Check in is at 4:00 pm PST on Thursday, May 1st.
Practitioners from any and all backgrounds are welcome. Some mindfulness experience is valuable but not required. Complete mindfulness instructions will be given, appropriate for your level. This retreat is intended to be enjoyable, not rigorous and participants are expected to have an open mind and heart as we build our community and share experiences together.
Rochelle requests that participants are able to sit and walk outdoors, tolerate grasslands and also smile through sudden weather changes. If/when you register, Off-Grid Retreats will email you a recommended packing list. Please be sure to pack what you feel is necessary to enjoy the outdoors in a variety of conditions.
The Participant’s Experience
Guided nature meditations and other nature-based practices
Sitting, walking, and playtime in a beautiful wild setting with miles of hiking trails
Land orientation talk(s) / walk(s) led by Wildlife Biologist and Site Owner Gary
Somatic experiencing
Delicious plant-based meals, tea and coffee - 3 simple and healthy meals each day from dinner Thursday night through breakfast on Sunday.
Use of silence: every effort is made to support a deep and fruitful event, and noble silence can be a valuable part of the process. We will weave periods of silence into the event at strategic times, to allow you to go deeper within. Some meals may be in silence.
Time to relax / reflect and unplug from cell service and wifi
Evening “community-building” and celebration
Sharing in meal preparation and cleanup
One-on-ones with Rochelle (Retreat Teacher)
Sliding scale and dana (donation based) pricing
Various lodging options - OGR’s glamping & camping tents (shown below) along with private cabins onsite. For more details, go to our PRICING + REGISTRATION
By clicking the Pricing & Registration button below, you may view the sliding scale pricing options we offer. Our pricing is set to just cover the costs of camping at River Ridge Ranch and the ingredients in our vegetarian meals.
The Retreat Teacher, Chef and Off-Grid Retreats are offering their teachings and services under a dana model so there will be an opportunity to donate towards each of them at the end of the retreat. To learn about our Cancellation and COVID policies, please visit our registration page below.
Participant Testimonials from the September 2023 Healing with Nature Retreat
Off-Grid Retreats truly blows my mind. What an INCREDIBLE mission and vision to be bringing to the world. During the Healing with Nature Retreat I attended not a single participant wanted for anything - every detail we could dream of had already been considered, taken care of, and wrapped up with a pretty little bow. Without Off-Grid retreats, 11 humans would not have had the chance to experience the life-changing teachings of Rochelle Calvert or experience the incredible wisdom of the River Ridge Ranch. Serving as the kind bridge between nature and human connection, I would attend any event or retreat that contains the Off-Grid Retreats stamp on it.
This retreat was awesome (i.e., causing or inducing awe; inspiring an overwhelming feeling of reverence and admiration) :D
I found the practice of pendulation, especially when practiced in the natural setting, to be the most transformative for me. It gave me hope that I can change my relationship to the inner barriers and patterns within me.
I enjoyed so many things about the retreat. One aspect that was wonderful were the nightly campfire gatherings and hearing from retreat participants after being in silence all day. The silence was very important and it was great to connect with others over a fire in the evenings.
By the time I left the retreat, I could feel my relationship with myself and the natural world shifting. I felt intense moments of clarity as we explored the link between mindfulness, somatic healing, and the natural world. Before the retreat these concepts felt inaccessible to me - I understood each of the words practically and I practiced each one individually to some degree - but by the time I left I *felt* the meaning of each one in my bones. I hope to return to this retreat every year to remind myself of what is important in life. If you feel caught in the chaos of anxiety, stress, and confusion, this is absolutely the retreat for you. From beginning to end, the Healing with Nature retreat was a life-shifting experience.
I have a strong desire to connect with nature in a way that manifests inner healing and mind body connection, especially in regards to healing the trauma my body has gone through in relation to having an autoimmune disease and being on immunosuppresants for more than 10 years.
Dr. Rochelle Calvert - Retreat Teacher
Rochelle Calvert, PhD, CMT, SEP, licensed clinical psychologist, certified mindfulness teacher, somatic experiencing practitioner has a devoted love to share the power and healing potential of mindfulness, somatic awareness and nature. She has studied and taught mindfulness for the past 20 years and knows personally the transformational potential. To share the love of these healing practices she has published a book Healing with Nature: Mindfulness and Somatic Practices to Heal from Trauma.
Dr. Calvert leads courses and retreats in mindfulness, somatic experiencing and Awake in the Wild, nature-based mindfulness. She also facilitates professional trainings in mindfulness for clinicians. She is the director of the Ecotherapy Program at SouthWestern College and New Earth Institute in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She is a certified mindfulness teacher with the Mindfulness Teaching Institute, the International Mindfulness Teachers Association and Awake In The Wild organization.
Rochelle is the founder and clinical director of New Mindful Life, which offers mindfulness, nature-based, and somatic experiencing therapies. She teaches individual meditations with nature that assist in healing from trauma. She supports her clients and takes them into nature with the aid of Bertha Grace, a Sprinter van that serves as a mobile therapy office.
Rochelle now lives in Taos, New Mexico and has a private practice in both Taos New Mexico and San Diego, California. She enjoys spending her free time in nature, hiking, practicing yoga, exploring Indigenous heritage, and resting with trees. She practices mindfulness-based meditation rooted in the Buddhist Theravada Tradition and practices meditation outside in nature daily.