Join Alex Walker and Laura Geiger for a five-day retreat following the Fool's invitation to edge closer to life, surrender to a different kind of perception, and practice rebellion in the context of magic, possibility, and creative collaboration.
Fooling helps us engage with the ordinary miracle of being human together. We dare to show up without being impressive. Fooling is a site of inquiry, a stage, and a playground. You can read more about Fooling here.
Dominant culture promotes separation, enforces binaries, encourages widespread deadening and hopelessness, sets the individual as the fundamental unit of society, and orients us toward extraction, scarcity, and urgency. Resistance can take many forms. The Fool's approach to disobedience is steeped in poetic imagination, pleasure, joy, curiosity, the whisper-quiet spaces of the secreted-away self, and the thunderous delight of not knowing - and doing anyway.
To follow the Fool is to follow Life. We begin to experience ourselves as emergent, as shapers of culture. We do this through performance, movement, play and game, meditation, contemplation, and a wide variety of creative and relational practices.
This retreat is an opportunity to co-create an environment through which a new landscape can emerge.
The venue
Welcome to the Won Dharma Center located in Claverack in upstate New York. The center is set in 426 acres of rolling hills and fields offering panoramic views of the majestic Catskill Mountains. There are walking trails and spaces to explore. Set in stunningly beautiful surroundings, the center consists of eco-friendly buildings designed with sensitivity to nature , providing a tranquil and meditative atmosphere.
For directions and details of public transport visit: https://wondharmacenter.org/directions/
What's included
Program
Wednesday to Sunday facilitation with full days on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. There will also be free time to explore and integrate. You are also welcome to attend the center's own regular meditations.
Accommodations
Single rooms (limited number) and double rooms available with en-suite sink and shared bath with adjacent room. Use of spacious lounge with a magnificent view of the Catskill Mountains. You can view rooms here.
Food
All meals and all day coffee/tea are included. Fresh, local ingredients, sourcing as much as possible from the center's own garden, to make nourishing vegetarian food with a strong Korean influence.
About your facilitators
Alex Walker, UnspeakableArts.org
Living with neurological differences and a weird tension of (and with) social identities has led me on a (spiritual) quest to find safety in my own skin and to feel and be safe with and for others. I find joy, relaxation and profound liberation in play, meditation, structured exploration, prayer, silliness and adventures in the physical and non physical realms. It seems necessary to co-create a society that serves our consciousness and I am called to this work. My discovery is that in surrender to wider intelligence there is the opportunity for unimaginable transformation and expansion. I am a poet, writer and artist and essentially a transient channel for life energy. My other work facilitating people in their life journeys compliments my love of relating outdoors with other than human beings and my work with people and their animals.
Laura Geiger
You can read a lot about me on this here website, so I thought I'd give you an alternative bio:
I was born in the smiling mouth, in the little sister, in the station wagon and AM radio. I was born in the snowy mountain military and reborn in the heat of the three rivers. I was born dancing the Shag on Sundays. I was born wrapped in macramé and corduroy. Once I was born a jelly bean, round and sweet and small, until I was mistaken for a blueberry by a hungry bear and disappeared for a long time. I was born in the back porch lit with cigarettes that float their smoke straight out to a dark marsh. I was born best friends with quartz and mica. I was born in the baptismal font, splish-sploshing my prayers onto the tile below. I was born my favorite tree in my favorite woods just hidden off the bike path. I was born in the moment you were born. And we were both born to burn..
Join us!
single room: $1850
double room: $1500
We welcome additional donations from those who are in a position to support others to access this work. All donations will go toward offering sponsored places on this retreat.
Please contact us by email if you would like to make an additional contribution.
ALSO: please be advised to book refundable travel tickets, as this event is not guaranteed to run until we have the minimum number of attendees required by the venue.