Opening day of retreat, under a 50-foot-wide tent.
Photos by: Mitchel Davidovitz, Paul Deering, Justin Michelson, Jacquelyn Rose

At Nature’s Heart this past summer, we entered wilderness retreat amid the flora and fauna of Oregon’s Cascade Mountains, even in this challenging year of global pandemic.

Inclement weather, other back-country hikers, U.S. Forest Service rangers, aging wilderness gear, and Covid-19 all threatened to disrupt our mindfulness.  But instead they only deepened our trust in the Dharma.

Justin Michelson, pulling the first gear haul up the mountain.

In fact the pandemic inspired more than twice as many yogis to attend our 2020 wilderness meditation retreats, compared to 2019.  It turned out that small-group, socially-distanced, outdoor activities were the safest, and in many cases the only, available option for gathering. 

Last summer, around the country record numbers of people took to the woods with family and friends.  People were (and are) understandably stressed, and meditation in nature sounded like a great substitute for festivals and summer parties. 

But bringing city people to pristine, secluded wilderness places to meditate is much more complicated than one might imagine.  We had to consider gear, food, trails, variable weather, back-country regulations, insurance, narrow forest roads, first aid, and so much more.  Compared to navigating these complexities, Covid-19 seemed like a breeze. 

Sitting in a large open-air tent deep in the wilds allowed us to easily maintain social distance among strangers.  When we couldn’t maintain distance, such as while doing yogi jobs in the wilderness kitchen, people wore face coverings to protect each other.  We took other safety measures including applicants completing a health questionnaire, and from our side removed cancellation penalties, did not require carpooling, and offered hand sanitizer. 

Meditating upon the mountains.

Nobody got sick.  In fact they didn’t even feel distant.  Instead people were deeply nourished by the transformative power of being alone together, held within the crystalline silence of mountain wilderness.  Of the more than 100 people attending retreats, without exception everyone left with more healing and insight than when they came.

But getting up to the mountain wilderness wasn’t easy. For instance this June the trail cart broke on the first trip up the mountain.  We temporarily abandoned it in the bushes, and instead painfully dragged the 170-pound meditation tent up the steepest stretch to the retreat site.

For the set-up crew, the first haul up the mountain is always the hardest.  The early morning breath is shallow, the legs are dull, the mind and heart are somehow both too comfortable and too anxious from the long car ride up the old forest roads.  But it only takes a few bends through the ancient undergrowth before the surface layer of anticipation burns away, and the unsettling recognition of the unknown sets in. 

Michelson leading metta meditation.

What crucial supplies might we have forgotten?

Will our steel cart weather the rocky ridgeline?

Will we need to clear fallen trees or move errant boulders?

Who might we come across, and will they ever understand what we’re doing here?

For us, the core set-up crew for Nature’s Heart, our mindfulness retreat begins when we arrive at the trailhead.  As we set foot on the path there’s no turning back, only facing forward into the unknown.  All we can do is to remember our bodhisattva vows, and keep surrendering to nature. 

Each trip up the mountain brings more gear– our retreat tent, our wilderness kitchen, our bells and prayer flags, our first-aid kits — for the nature meditators who are soon to come. As we ascend and descend the body loosens, the blood thins, the breath deepens, and the mountain air seeps farther into every last vein and artery.  The dull then sharp muscle aching feathers away, into the vast expanse of endless blue sky. 

Emily Rice, Jeri Mrazek, Marla McFadin and Michelson take a mindful hike during the retreat.

Three unique open-air tents make up wilderness meditation hall, kitchen, and movement area.  The meditation tent is 50 feet by 50 feet, with a canvas floor and central fire-pit and altar. It holds more than 25 people, sitting 6 feet apart. 

On our overnight retreats we guide participants on short hikes to a number of secluded and pristine national forest locations in the Oregon Cascades. There we can practice together in community, nourished by gourmet backcountry meals and the ancient beings of nature. 

Yogis can sleep where they meditate, or in their own personal tents under the night sky.  Everyone participates in operating the camp, including collecting firewood, kitchen preparation, and maintaining the latrines .

An early mindful walk.

For those who hear about us or find us online, we are “Nature’s Heart: the center for natural mindfulness.” This work is our Dharma.  Each step on the wilderness trails renews our wish for collective healing and insight.  In this act we too are renewed, protected, and emboldened, so even when the deepest pain within us awakens, we find a bottomless resilience of heart to meet it. 

The wish we carry transcends any name or retreat.  It’s an ancient wish that has been fiercely protected, passed from the tongue of the Buddha himself when he offered his first sermon in the jungles of what is now Sarnath, India.  Time and time again, in many suttas, the Buddha explicitly told monks to go to the wilderness to practice.  He said:

“Here one, having gone to the forest or to the root of a tree or to an empty hut, sits down; having folded one’s legs crosswise, set one’s body erect, and established mindfulness in front of one, ever mindful one breathes in, mindful one breathes out.”

A time of space and solitude.

Nature teaches us so many things as Dharma practitioners.  It is no accident why it has always been so essential to include the natural world as part of our Buddhist practice. 

As the Buddha said, “…friendship…is actually the whole of the holy life” (SN 45.2).  He said our spiritual friends are the greatest external supports on our paths.  What the texts don’t always make explicit, however, is that these friendships are literally everywhere around us in the natural world. 

The other beings of nature, having never known the confusion of the human mind, have always organically embodied their own unique and emergent expressions of life.  These beings then are not just friends, but also incredible Dharma teachers.  And what’s more, through their embodiment of their natural truth they also become expressions of the pervading compassion of the universe itself.  Even as we mindlessly ignore or destroy them, they selflessly extend their support to the confused human hearts of this  world.

Evening meditation in the wilderness hall.

Indeed, the endless depths of wisdom and compassion are scripted in nature: on the skeletal veins of a fall leaf, in the winding patterns of the worm holes in the soil, in the soft touch of sunlight on the skin.  Nature ceaselessly reminds us that the truth we seek is always simpler than we think, always more immediate than our words about it. Nature reminds us that no single atom on this Earth, nor any of our darkest moments, are ever apart from it.

From spring to fall Nature’s Heart offers these one-to-11-day nature retreats, as well as meditation sessions in the park and half-day hikes. Even small immersions in nature give a breath of fresh air to our thought-centered lives.

For more info about our upcoming 2021 sittings, hikes, and retreats, please visit Nature’s Heart online or find us on Facebook @naturesheartretreats.