June 7-10 2026 — Grow Our Souls:

Dharma Arts Retreat for Earth Workers

We'll enjoy rest, play, connection and deepening spiritual practice through Buddhist meditation, sound, movement, storytelling and art-making in connection to the land. There will be space to be quiet and still, to share hopes and challenges, to form connections, and engage in collective deep inquiry -- all in service of deepening our capacity to meet the current moment.

Retreat Schedule:

+ Sunday June 7th: afternoon arrival, dinner 5:30-7, opening session 7:30-9pm

+ Monday June 8th and Tuesday June 9th: full days of practice with ample breaks

+ Wednesday, June 10th -- closing session 9-11am, lunch provided at noon

Apply HERE!

Jungwon Kim is a writer, Soros Equality Fellow, and sangha builder in the Plum Village tradition founded by Thích Nhất Hạnh. Her professional career spans more than two decades of work as a communications strategist and journalist dedicated to human rights and environmental advocacy. She served for eight years as the editor of Amnesty International’s quarterly magazine, where she commissioned and published the work of award-winning writers and photographers. More recently, she led a team of writers, videographers, and designers as the Head of Creative and Editorial for the Rainforest Alliance, an international NGO working to reduce the devastating impacts of colonial commodity crop systems. She is the mother of two young adults, co-founder of the Love Circle Sangha (2012-20) and the Dharma Pod Sangha, an amateur musician, and a joyfully mediocre surfer

The June 2026 Grow Our Souls Retreat is a 4 day/ 3 night Buddhist meditation, song and somatics retreat for Earth workers.

We invite you to apply if you:

  • consider yourself an Earth Worker --  land steward, teacher, cultural worker, organizer, caregiver, strategist, advocate, healer, paid or unpaid, in service of environmental justice and/or in relationship with land

  • live in/near the Northwest (retreat is in Western Massachusetts, and we're inviting folks who live within driving/train distance)

  • feel nourished by and/or are interested in Buddhism, and other contemplative spiritual practices, as forces for both individual and collective liberation 

Participation is offered at a sliding scale from $108-800. We prioritize participation of people who have been impacted by systems of oppression, even as they work to transform them. 

This retreat is partially funded by BESS Family Foundation and the Kripalu Center.

Find the application here

Our facilitation team …

Kate Johnson is a Buddhist meditation teacher and author trained in the Western Insight/ Theravada lineage, with roots in the Thai Forest tradition. She’s a Director at Buddhist Peace Fellowship, a Guiding Teacher at True North Insight Meditation Center, and a member of the Stewarding Teachers Council at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, where she leads residential retreats and co-teaches the Community Dharma Leaders Training Program (CDL).  An utterly unprofessional dancer, Kate holds a BFA in Modern Dance from Alvin Ailey/Fordham University, and MA in Performance Studies from NYU. She has is the author of the book Radical Friendship: Seven Ways to Love Yourself and Find Your People in an Unjust World, and the mother of a five year old demon slaying pop star, who is also her greatest teacher yet.

Tenzin Mingyur Paldron is a Tibetan transgender artist, author, and community educator in New York City. He holds a PhD in Rhetoric from UC Berkeley, where he received nine fellowships and wrote the dissertation, Tibet, China, and the United States: Self-Immolation and the Limits of Understanding.

His mixed-media installation Earth is Heard was on view at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre in an exhibition curated by the Myanmar Peace Museum. He is the author of A Capacity to Change, a comic book about transgender equality and our interconnected humanities, and the creator of Power, Masculinity, and Mindfulness, a video commission that sources exchanges between the artist and his father to engage wider world issues and Tibetan realities.

Doc Tenzin is currently developing several public education projects, laying the groundwork for his research memoir, Transgender Road Diaries: A Tibetan Adventure, and writing a play.

MawuLisa flows through life as a southern born, community based trauma healing midwife, somatic bodyworker, song weaver, lover of nature & Spirit and lifelong student of the Healing Arts. Her practice is inspired by the healing & embodiment technologies of generative somatics, Strozzi Institute, Ayurveda, Earth-based Wisdom Traditions, the Divine Feminine and the healing gifts generously bestowed to her by her Ancestors. MawuLisa is devoted to healing the embodied impacts of capitalism, racialized trauma, gender oppression & sexual violence while cultivating centered presence and erotic vitality for herself and other liberation warriors and politicized healers. She is an active lead teacher, bodyworker and embodiment trainer with BOLD (Black Organizing for Leadership & Dignity), a seasoned lead teacher and senior practitioner mentor for the generative somatics community, and currently finds passion & pleasure in her ongoing study & practice of indigenous healing technologies, mentoring & developing other somatic practitioners, stewarding land, singing in choirs, facilitating grief rituals, decolonizing Love, and bringing heaven to earth as an Orisha Diviner & Priestess.