Spirit of Zen ~ Meditation & Somatic Movement Retreat
with Melissa Berry Appleton & Suniti Dernovsek
June 14-19th, 2024
Stowel Lake Farm, Salt Spring Island
Join Melissa and Suniti this June for our annual retreat on Salt Spring Island. Stowel Lake Farm is a thriving organic farm, retreat center, and community, located on 100 acres of mixed forests, fields, rocky outcrops and rolling hills. The food, the facilities and the land are an exceptional venue to meet all the right elements of retreat.
This retreat is in the spirit of Zen, Buddhist lineages, and tending to the body with love. It will be about the simple treasures of practice and how they relate to our everyday lives. Beautifully bare bones. Primarily a meditation retreat, our time together will include a blend of traditional yoga postures, somatic movement, silence, stillness, connection, breath, sound, the ground and deep rest. Together we are gently resurrecting bodies of goodness.
Spirit of Zen was designed to offer a good taste of Buddhist tradition, ritual and form of a Buddhist meditation retreat while also considering accessibility for those who feel more monastic forms of retreat present barriers to attend. We offer this retreat with the heart of a householder, deep respect for the complexities of 21st century living and those who have experienced trauma.
Suniti and Melissa met leading a Zen retreat in the Canadian alpine with Michael Stone. Endless giggles, creativity and liberating conversations keep them coming back together. Suniti and Melissa share curiosities about relationships, marriage, intimacy, parenthood, aging, work, community life and broadening perspectives in tender ways.
