Community Events for 2024 + 2025
Inviting the Benevolent Support of our Ancestors:
A 6 day Meditation Retreat
Integrating:
Ancestral Connection + Deep Stillness
in Community
with Erin Selover
Lake County CA
Tuesday, October 29 - Sunday November 2, 2024
Samhain is both the Celtic New Year and the time when it is said that the veils are thinnest to connect with ancestors. At this time of year, all around the world cultures have to chosen to connect with those who have passed to offer appreciations, remembrance and ask for support.
At this time of collapse and crisis many wise people say that our benevolent ancestors are here to support us. At the same time, we also live with the legacies of the past harm our ancestors have caused and experienced. It can be a complex relationship.
Further, many white assimilated folks have not had sufficient support to engage with ancestors. And many even feel fear of the practice. Part of this fears can be based in past and current practices of epistemicide. Epistemicide is a tool used by religions and states to eradicate ways of knowing and being that are essential to a culture surviving. For many white assimilated people, the practice of connecting with ancestors was eradicated so long ago that we no longer have family or community where the practice is still taught.
And yet many of us still feel a longing or a curiosity or a sense that there is something important about connecting with our ancestors.
This retreat is design to support you to make the next integratabtle connection with your ancestral line, particularly that will support you in your capacity to engage with the collapse and crisis of our times. The majority of the time will be held in silence and you will be offered practices that you can choose to engage or not. There will be a very strong emphasize on connecting with your own intuition and to trusting what comes as information in co-learning and co-listening environment.
The retreat will include sitting, moving and lying down meditation, Q&A, guided meditations, making of ancestral alter, guided ritual, journaling, and closing circle.
We will practice together need based gift economics. Absolutely, no one turned away for lack of funds. The maximum number of participants is 18. So it will be very intimate and sweet.
DATE AND TIME DETAILS:
October 29 - November 2
LOCATION:
Lake County, CA
Living Within InterBeing:
Practical Nonviolence + Engaged Buddhism
Erin Selover & Kaira Jewel Lingo
November 2025 - May 2026
Hosted by Barre Center for Buddhist Studies Path Program
We are in this together
In this course we intend to explore how Engaged Buddhism and the Nonviolent Global Liberation framework can be expressed in daily life, individually and collectively, to help us respond and live meaningfully as peacemakers in a world where violence and war are increasing. Our study and practice will include the Engaged Buddhism of Thich Nhat Hanh and other sacred activists and peacemakers, and our exploration of nonviolence will draw from the Nonviolent Global Liberation framework. Our intention is to weave these two paths in service of creating a culture of peace and compassion, in which the liberation of all beings is paramount.
In this 7-month course, we plan to guide us into an embodied insight into interbeing and our interdependent connection with all of life and to gain practical skills to apply this insight more deeply in our lives. The focus of the course is on shifting consciousness from the individual to the collective while also offering daily practices to support integrating this shift into the fullness of our being.
If we fulfill our intention this course will be deeply challenging. We invite you to consider the following:
Am I willing to grow my heart in the imperfect and sometimes challenging space of community?
Do I already or am I seriously willing to see and hold with compassion and tenderness my limitations and others’ limitations?
Do I already or I am seriously willing to start to care for and advocate for all beings?
Do I already or am I seriously willing to start to co-create a world that works for everyone?
If the answer to these questions is a resounding yes, then we ask you to think about who else in your community, workplace, neighborhood, family or sangha might also share a similar orientation and invite them to join you in applying for this course. This work tends to be exponentially more fruitful if you take it on with others with whom you share purpose and/or community. That said, if you cannot identify anyone, we wholeheartedly welcome you to apply and invite you to join this group of others who share your commitment.
This course will be limited to 35 people to create an intimate container to deepen this inquiry. We also hold the intention to have a diverse community that is intergenerational, with robust representation from BIPOC and LGBTQIA people, and with varied income levels.
Opening Retreat: November 14-19, 2025:
Meeting Fear with Love: Foundations of Engaged Buddhism & Nonviolence
“Patriarchal societies are based, at root, on loss of trust in life and turning away from life’s flow into modes of being that emerge from scarcity, function in separation, and result in powerlessness.” - Miki Kashtan,
“When I was in Vietnam, so many of our villages were being bombed. Along with my monastic brothers and sisters, I had to decide what to do. Should we continue to practice in our monasteries, or should we leave the meditation halls in order to help the people who were suffering under the bombs? After careful reflection, we decided to do both—to go out and help people and to do so in mindfulness. We called it engaged Buddhism. Mindfulness must be engaged. Once there is seeing, there must be acting. …We must be aware of the real problems of the world. Then, with mindfulness, we will know what to do and what not to do to be of help.” Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Step
In this opening retreat we plan to explore key aspects of Engaged Buddhism and the Nonviolent Global Liberation framework and how both can support compassion and skillful engagement in our world.
Engaged Buddhism is a contemporary movement, with many ancestors in different Buddhist traditions, that invites active participation in social, political, and environmental issues. Integrating Buddhist practices with a commitment to social action and advocacy for peace and justice, it invites us to practice: interconnectedness; mindfulness and presence; nonviolence and peace; environmental responsibility; advancing equity and structural change; living an ethical life; building community; and being part of raising awareness and educating others.
Nonviolent Global Liberation, NGL, is a community of practitioners engaging in experimentation with the NGL framework. Throughout the course we plan to engage with NGL’s foundational teachings and practices, including: the capacity lens; purpose-based discernment; impact sharing; how to orient to vision while staying rigorously within capacity; power and privilege analysis; mourning as a liberatory practice; and the practice of needs choreography to weave togetherness (see the NGL website for detailed description of the NGL Framework and principles and the learning packets for deep dives into the content of the framework).
During this retreat our intention is to attend to internalized states of scarcity, separation and powerlessness that can lead to coercive behaviors such as othering, blaming, and “should-ing.” Applying the Buddha’s foundational teaching on the Four Noble Truths, we want to look at modern social and economic systems that reinforce scarcity to support a deeper willingness and ability to co-create alternatives to these systems. The lens of the Four Noble Truths can also help us turn towards our painful habits of othering with compassion and tenderness. Through connecting more deeply with these mind states of separation, which are key roots of violence, we can set a strong intention individually and as a community to embody and act from a love that is stronger than fear.
Monthly Zoom Gathering Dates:
5 Sundays 11:30-1:30pm ET
Dec 14
Jan 11
Feb 8
March 8
Apr 12
Closing Retreat: May 19-24, 2026:
Shifting from I to We: Building the Beloved Community
In this closing retreat we plan to look into what it means to embody the vision of a Beloved Community. Articulated by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Howard Thurman, it is a vision of liberation for all beings. The work of Thich Nhat Hanh, Dorothy, Day, and others, was to nurture a loving and nonviolent movement to realize this healing and liberating vision.
Shifting from I to we, we learn to see ourselves as always part of a larger whole to which we are oriented, the community within which we make choices rooted in deep interdependence, where we also understand that our happiness and suffering is fully intertwined with the happiness and suffering of others. We will offer methodologies for building and healing the Beloved Community developed by Engaged Buddhist pioneers like Thich Nhat Hanh, including practices like Beginning Anew, Touching the Earth, Lazy Days, and Deep Relaxation. We also intend to continue to deepen in the liberatory framework and practices used within NGL. With mindfulness and clarity, we hope to cultivate capacities to liberate our own minds and hearts so that we might better learn to do our own work in service of collective liberation and respond with wise, compassionate, and courageous action in the world.
Cultivating Citta:
Intuitive Wisdom and Emobodied Love
June 6 - June 12, 2025 (7 nights)
Erin Selover
Spirit Rock - in person Residential Retreat
registration coming in 2025
We are in this together
The emphasis on this retreat will be cultivating relaxed and kind attention in all activities to support stability of mind, body and heart. Within this continuity of presence we will turn towards investigation of suffering and the end of suffering as we move through our moment to moment activities and meditation practice, emphasizing kindness and clarity. Particular attention will be paid to attitudes of mind such as pushing away, leaning into or spacing out and the results of those mind states on one’s sense of peace and freedom in relation to experience.
This retreat is suitable for both beginner and experienced meditators and is held in nobel silent except for teacher-led Q&A, small groups, or other practice meetings. There will be opportunities and instructions for outdoor practice.
2024 On-line Samhain Ritual
Celebrating the Celtic New Year + Honoring Ancestors
Online ritual Date and Time TBD
Samhain is the Celtic New Year. A time to literally create your own broom (or buy one on etsy) and sweep away the dust of the past 13 moons. It’s also an invitation to enter deep time and honor our ancestors through ritual, ceremony and celebration. Particularly if you have lost a loved one or a particular aspect of yourself this year . It can also be a time to mark a cycle of closure. With the support of those that have gone before, it is time to take stock, make repairs, relish in the space of letting go and begin to call in the qualities of your next cycle becoming.
To register email corriebennett@gmail.com and you will be sent retreat information and a zoom link.
The retreat is offered completely on gift and no one is turned away for lack of funds. Suggested offering between $53 - $103. Please do not let finances be a barrier to receiving this offering.
Offerings can be made through Venmo @erinselover or paypal.me/ErinSelover
Registration is not available yet for this offering.
Calling Forth Vision - A Winter Solstice Retreat
with Erin Selover
Spirit Rock Meditation Center
December 15 2024
10am - 4pm
Winter Solstice marks the moment where the sun is farthest from the earth. In many earth-based traditions, there is the practice of gathering the days before the solstice to call forth the light. This practice of calling forth builds relationship with the sun, humbly requesting its return to warm the soil, our bodies, and nourish all the seeds planted in fall and early winter.
As we approach the longest night of the year we join in meditation practice and ceremony to court the sun, calling forth the light of the sun within ourselves, each other and our global community. Please come with a candle and journal.
All are welcome! No one will be turned away for lack of funds as space allows. For more information, please email Registration@spiritrock.org.
DATE AND TIME DETAILS:
Saturday, December 16, 2023
10:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. US Pacific Time
LOCATION:
Online via Zoom with Spirit Rock
2025 Imbolc Ritual:
Celebrating the Lunar Imbolc
February 2025, Date TBD
With Erin Selover
On Zoom
Imbolc is the half-way point between the winter solstice and spring equinox. A time where we are invited to begin to welcome the sun and slowly turn outward.
Imbolc is also a time to celebrate the Celtic Goddess Brigid. Brigid is a goddess of mercy. As we complete our reflection of the previous year and move towards the new life calling at Spring, Brigid encourages us to continue to bring tenderness, forgiveness and gentleness to the previous year.
The retreat is offered completely on gift and no one is turned away for lack of funds. Suggested offering between $33 - $103. Please do not let finances be a barrier to receiving this offering.
Offerings can be made through Venmo @erinselover or paypal.me/ErinSelover
2025 Celebrating Ostara: The Festival of Balance
Aligning with the Energies of the Spring Equinox
March 2025, Date TBD
With Erin Selover
On Zoom
Spring Equinox is a time when day and night are equal all over the world. It’s particularly a time of tuning into the quality of balance, to see clearly the possibilities that lie before, however constrained, as the flowers blossom and the days gradually increase in light.
The retreat is offered completely on gift and no one is turned away for lack of funds. Suggested offering between $33 - $103. Please do not let finances be a barrier to receiving this offering. Offerings can be made through Venmo @erinselover or paypal.me/ErinSelover
Registration will open in late February. Email corriebennett@gmail.com to be added to the email list for these events.
2025 Celebrating Beltane :
Aligning with Fertility
with Erin Selover
Date + Time TDB
on zoom
Come celebrate Beltane with us.
Suggested offering between $33 - $103. Please do not let finances be a barrier to receiving this offering.
Note: The registration is not yet open for this event.
2025 Celebrating Summer Solstice
with Erin Selover
Date and Time TB
Please join us to gather in the evening of Summer Solstice to align with the outer energy beginning to wane and the inner energy beginning to expand. We celebrate all that has manifested since the Winter Solstice, during the outward cycle of the Sun, and consciously call back the dark to restore balance and wholeness internally and externally.
Suggested offering between $33 - $103. Please do not let finances be a barrier to receiving this offering.
Note: The registration is not yet open for this event.
2024 Celebrating the Fall Equinox & Lunar Eclipse
with Erin Selover
on Zoom
September 17, 6:30 - 8:30 PST
Come celebrate the Fall Equinox with earth based ritual, meditation and a sincere community. This year we will hold this ritual during the Lunar Eclipse at 7:32pm to support amplifying our prayers for collective balance and healing at this time.
Equinox is a time of year when day and night are of equal length all over the world. Connecting with the earth’s relationship to the sun at equinox, offers an opportunity to reflect on how to bring steadiness and wisdom to individual, relational and societal imbalances.
Fall Equinox is a meaningful time for celebration of the harvest. Whatever bore fruit, rejoice in the offering. It is also a time of restored balance and integration. It’s natural to get out of balance in summer. Now is the time to get back into the body and daily rhythms that nourish you that may have gotten lost in all the abundance of summer. This is a potent time to gather and we are delighted to be together again.
Suggested offering between $33 - $103. Please do not let finances be a barrier to receiving this offering.
Spirit Rock's 2024 Women's Meditation Retreat
In Person Retreat at Spirit Rock
September 19 - 25, 2024 (6 nights)
Erin Selover, Kate Johnson, Victoria Cary, Erin Treat
We are in this together
An open secret of meditation is that prioritizing ease and well-being leads to a natural and joyful attention. This retreat will focus on deep rest for the first days, inviting the natural capacity of mindful attention to arise from within. We will focus on the Four Noble Truths through teachings and stories that lift up women from a diversity of lineages.
If you identify as a woman and have ever felt like your gender expression, age, ethnicity, body, or sexual orientation was unwelcome in Dharma spaces, please know that our true intention is to welcome all of you. You are especially invited to join us.
The retreat will be held in silence except for teacher-led Q&A, small groups, or other practice meetings.
REGISTER HERE - Applications accepted on April 17, 2024
Weaving Liberation for self and Liberation for the Whole
Dharma + Nonviolent Global Liberation Intro Course
ONLINE with Erin Selover
Date TBD
This course will be an integration of the teachings of Buddhism and Nonviolent Global Liberation, NGL. Each class will include a meditation practice followed by an interactive learning session with teachings interspersed with question and answer periods.
The Dharma teachings will focus on
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practices to stay grounded in the body
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cultivating presence
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cultivating lovingkindness and compassion
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increasing capacity to not identify with experience in order to increase presence and clarity
The NGL content will focus on shifting patterns from
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either/or thinking to integration
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powerlessness to restoring full choice
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separation to togetherness and
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scarcity to unilateral generosity
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coercion or force to capacity and willingness
Erin Selover (she/her) is on the Teachers Council at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Marin, CA and is a somatic trauma therapist. In 2018 she started studying intensively with Miki Kastan with the Nonviolent Global Liberation, NGL, movement asking the questions, “How do we create alternatives to capitalist and patriarchal systems? How do we organize ourselves in ways that allow the insight of interdependence to be continually realized?” This is the first time she is offering a synthesis of her dual passions of Buddhist Dharma and NGL together.
This course invites you to explore the teachings in your own life between sessions. The sessions will be interactive, alternating between brief talks and question and answer periods. . Please come with a willingness to learn together. Corrie Varga (they/them) will be providing course support, please reach out to them with questions at corriebennett@gmail.com.
This course is offered on needs based gift economics and a portion of the proceeds will go to the NGL community. No one is turned away for financial reasons. We ask if you have the means to support Erin, Corrie and NGL you do. More will be shared during the course as these principles are at the heart of the work. A sliding scale for the course is $100-$500.