Our Partners
Shelterwood is a 900-acre Indigenous, Black, Disabled, and Queer-led community forest and collective of land protectors and cultural changemakers. Shelterwood is based on unceded Southern Pomo and Kashia territory, above what is now called the Russian River in Northern California. Through land stewardship, active forest restoration and wildfire risk reduction, community and cultural organizing, and the development of a community retreat center, Shelterwood heals interconnected ecosystems. Our ongoing partnership with the Shelterwood Collective has strengthened our community and brought many practitioners and teachers to this beloved site.
Located in the expansive foothills bordering Sequoia National Forest, River Ridge Ranch is a 722-acre nature preserve, field research site, and campground. Their mission is to provide leadership in sustainable land management and natural resource conservation to landowners, planners and the general public at the watershed, county, state, national and global levels. With support from Off-Grid Retreats, RRR has been exploring mindfulness and movement retreats as a new revenue stream for self-sustaining preservation of the land.
Boundless Refuge is a community of practitioners that holds an annual three-month-long meditation retreat in nature, led by North Burn (in the image below on the far right) with assistant teachers. BR is entirely dana-based, and in addition to the annual intensive retreat, offers semi-annual work periods -- a time for informal connection, practice, and caring for the retreats. Previous retreats were held in a small cabin in the woods on an island in the Pacific Northwest. Their 2024 retreat will be held in the rolling hills of Mendocino County. Off-Grid Retreats provides resources and support to BR through a fiscal sponsorship.
Nature Dharma Teacher Training
With support from OGR, pioneered by leading meditation teachers from Spirit Rock, Insight Meditation Center, and Insight Meditation Society, this nature-centric teacher training program is training a large cohort of teachers to guide multi-day traditional vipassana meditation retreats outdoors.