Retreat Program & Site
Nourish your wild heart in this women’s mindfulness meditation retreat in a beautiful nature preserve in northern California. Unplug from your busy life and your digital devices and connect with the healing energy of the natural world and the intuitive wisdom of your own body. Slow down to receive the support of the Earth beneath you. Attune to the dharma teachings whispered by wind, stars, and trees.
Off-Grid Retreats is delighted to partner with Anne Cushman and Kate Munding to lead this retreat at Whispertree Retreat Center. There is more information about the retreat teachers at the bottom of this webpage. And, just so you know, all of the images on this webpage were taken at Whispertree .
We’ll spend much of each day outdoors, deepening into presence in spring meadows dotted with wildflowers, amidst forests of firs and oaks, in the company of hawks, hares, kestrels, bobcats, and other more-than-human friends. Our retreat will be held in the container of Noble Silence to deepen our inner and outer listening.
Whispertree (formerly Bell Valley Retreat) is nestled between two ridges, and makes up a sub-watershed of the Navarro River, offering expansive views of Anderson Valley. The 600-acre center includes six miles of pristine trails—some with ridge-top access, others winding through woods and alongside creeks and a swimming pond.
A yurt with panoramic views and a spacious yoga barn provide an indoor sanctuary and ample space for gentle, restorative movement meditation. A redwood hot tub offers a soaking space for renewal and restoration.
Women identifying practitioners from any and all backgrounds and meditation experience levels are welcome.
Each day will include:
Outdoor meditation instruction & silent practice - seated, walking, standing, and lying down
Gentle guided movement meditation - trauma sensitive and accessible for all bodies
Dharma reflections and group sharing
Mindfulness guidance attuned to deepening our connection with the natural world
Ample time to explore the beauty of the land according to your own rhythms
Whispertree is fairly spread out–in some cases, you may need to walk for 15 minutes on a well marked but unpaved trail to get from your room / tent to our meditation site, and then again from the meditation site to the dining hall. For those with health / mobility limitations, we aim to coordinate a carpool. However, even with the carpool drive to the main site, you may then need to walk a short distance over uneven and unpaved terrain with some going up and down hill. Please note, when we are practicing outdoors, we will be sitting, walking, and lying down.
Check in is at Whispertree on Monday, May 18, 2026 at 4:00 PM PST. And starting with dinner on April 2nd, we’ll be serving 3 delicious vegetarian meals / day. Our cook is able to cater to a wide array of dietary restrictions and allergies (including gluten and dairy intolerance).
Whispertree is dedicated to the Earth and to supporting today’s transformational change-makers. This center embraces an emerging movement of humans seeking to connect more deeply with themselves, each other and the more-than-human world in an effort to create a more reverent and regenerative future.
Retreat Cost
The tradition of ‘Dana,’ or mutual giving, has supported Buddhist cultures for 2500 years. As this is a dana retreat, our registration fee just covers the basic costs of putting on the retreat: food, retreat center fee, administration costs, and other incidental expenses. Please note that this fee does NOT include compensation for Anne Cushman and Kate Munding for teaching the retreat or for Off-Grid Retreats for organizing it.
On the final retreat day, you will be invited to share dana (AKA to donate) to the Retreat Teachers and to Off-Grid Retreats. For this retreat, the suggested donation to teachers is in the range of $200 to $700, depending on your means. All donations will be gratefully accepted, including those outside of this range.
We offer the retreat fees on a sliding scale (based on the lodging you choose) to allow each participant to pay for what is most appropriate for themselves. There are a variety of lodging options to choose from at Whispertree Retreat Center. There are glamping spaces and rooms indoors. There are single accommodations and shared (up to 2 people per room/tent). We provide in depth descriptions on the exact accommodations on our registration webpage: ****EARLY BIRD 10 % DISCOUNT UNTIL DEC 15!****
Cancellation Policy
If you request a refund before January 1, 2026, we're able to provide you a full refund minus a $100 admin fee. If you request a refund between January 1, 2026 and March 15, 2026, we'll provide you with a 50% refund minus a $100 admin fee. If you request a refund after March 15, 2026, we're not able to provide you with any refund.
To keep the retreat as affordable as possible, our retreat fees are set to simply cover the expenses of putting on the retreat—renting the venue, compensating retreat staff, etc. When someone drops out, we still incur all of those expenses. For this reason, we are unable to make exceptions to our cancellation and refund policy—even when you have a very good reason for canceling. Thank you for your understanding.
Retreat Teachers
Anne Cushman is a pioneer in the integration of mindfulness, embodied meditation, and creative expression.
A senior retreat teacher at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, she founded the first multi-year Buddhist meditation training for yoga teachers.
She’s the author of the memoir The Mama Sutra, the novel Enlightenment for Idiots, the mindful yoga book Moving Into Meditation, and the India pilgrimage guide From Here to Nirvana; and her essays on spiritual practice in daily life have appeared in the New York Times, Yoga Journal, O: The Oprah Magazine, Lion’s Roar, Tricycle, and many other publications.
She is a guiding teacher for the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program, which has trained thousands of teachers in more than 70 countries.
Kate Munding is a Founding Mother and guiding teacher of Assaya Sangha, a women’s insight meditation community. She was a mentee of James Baraz and was granted teaching transmission in the Insight Meditation tradition in 2016 after four years of mentorship through the Spirit Rock/IMS/IRC Teacher Training under the tutelage of teachers such as Jack Kornfield, Phillip Moffitt, and Joseph Goldstein.
To name a couple centers, she teaches residential retreats at Spirit Rock and Vallecitos Mountain Retreat Center. Fostering spiritual community and creating space for women to dive deep into their Dharma practice is a great passion for Kate. She also loves being a mom to her young son, hiking through the hills, and cooking for her loved ones. She lives with her family in the San Francisco Bay area.