Saturday, APRIL 20, 2024 – 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. ** NOW FULL ** We will be practicing the various forms of Vipassana Buddhist meditation:** Sitting (no sessions more than 30-40 minutes), various types of practices.** Walking (both indoor and outdoor)** An hour-long movement/yoga session**Eating (lunchtime will be `silent, with special focus on the food)** Metta/Lovingkindness practice The practice of Noble Silence will be...
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Saturday, April 9, 2016- Nature Day with our expert nature guide, Joe Neal… an annual springtime tradition now, and folks from all over the Ozarks show up…we’ll meet (9 am) at the top of the Wattle Hollow driveway on Hwy 170, and stroll slowly down-hill. (People will share their binoculars if you don’t have any).
Then, we’ll share a pot-luck lunch overlooking the pond and mountains, (where Joe and others can also identify dozens of birds, just by sound….). And head down into the creek-bed, for a delightful nature walk into yet another eco-system.
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May 3-5, 20246 p.m. Friday – 4 p.m. Sunday Here’s another opportunity to experience a conjunction ofcreativity, kindness, gourmet food, with the best possible guides onour musical journey: Donna and Kelly Mulholland, Jack Smith. Contact Judy Smith for information and registration:judysmith221gmail.com All Wattle Hollow retreats (except Songwriters’ weekend) areoffered by donation…e.g. no one is turned away for lack of...
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May 1 – 3, 2015 – This annual retreat is never the same twice. Because, we are never the same twice, on our path. Essentially, we’ll use meditation, writing, art, music and group sharing to find that inner Mother-space of loving-kindness and wisdom.
The many meditative sanctuaries at Wattle devoted to the Divine Feminine: Kuan-yin, Earth Mother, Black Madonna, Green Tara, Virgin of Guadeloupe, and Ferocious Mother may offer us archetypal inspiration about how to sculpture our own inner prayer and inner sanctuary.
Read MoreSaturday, MAY 25, 2024 – 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. ** NOW FULL ** We will be practicing the various forms of Vipassana Buddhist meditation:** Sitting (no sessions more than 30-40 minutes), various types of practices.** Walking (both indoor and outdoor)** An hour-long movement/yoga session** Eating (lunchtime will be silent, with special focus on the food)** Metta/Lovingkindness practice The practice of Noble Silence will be observed all day,...
Read MoreSaturday, June 8, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. This retreat will have a special focus on nature. (See above for fuller description of Dharma Day.) All Dharma Days are suitable for oldies and for newcomers…since we all need to arrive with “beginner’s mind,” anyhow. No charge for this day, in the ancient Buddhist tradition. Dana/donations are accepted, however. Friends, I suggest that you don’t wait too long to register for any of these...
Read MoreSunday, July 21, 2024 (10 a.m. – 4 p.m.) We will be practicing the various forms of Vipassana Buddhist meditation:** Sitting (no sessions more than 30-40 minutes), various types of practices.** Walking (both indoor and outdoor)** An hour-long movement/yoga session**Eating (lunchtime will be `silent, with special focus on the food)** Metta/Lovingkindness practice The practice of Noble Silence will be observed all day, except for...
Read MoreHello again, dear readers. I don’t know if I can describe the way that I am greeted here, all day long…like a beloved auntie who has finally returned… I am the oldest member of this community and therefore Pa Joy**, which means Auntie Joy, to all. Some of these relationships go back decades. We traveled Thailand together with Khun Mae and shared some challenges, too. It was my birthday last week…and I tend to be a...
Read MoreSawadhi kha, 🙏dear readers. My first day in Thailand felt quite significant, for myself and for the entire community. Some of you may recall from last year’s Tales: I reported a sense of physical and energetic deterioration in the S.D.S. (Bangkok) center’s vitality level.For one thing, Ajahn Chom’s work crew was spending all their time in the southern center, creating fantastic new water features and landscaping miracles every...
Read MoreHello again, dear readers. You all have reminded me why I write these Tales. Every year I experience prolonged labor and difficulty with Tales #1. My primary symptom is a sense of over-exposure… like I’m on YouTube giving birth. Then your responses come rolling in, almost immediately, bursting with the enthusiasm of shared confessions, and relief (this year) to be “not the only one” who is so damn crazy and strung out on...
Read MoreHola, my dear readers. Harvesting veggies in the community garden I like to imagine each year is totally different from the one preceding it…. But I do seem to recall that the exact same thing occurred last year …hmmmm: I arrived here in the lovely town of La Paz (Baja Sur) and sloughed into a pleasantly vegetative state, setting up my little 1950’s kitchen, getting my drinking water, renting a bicycle…. And revisiting my...
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Heading south to SDS II, known as Bodhisattva Valley, we began to feel lighter and lighter. Nawng Joy, Aey and I have a way of sparking each other into silly happiness. Here we are at a lunch stop along the way. Yes, rice paddies are really that green. I packed pillows and extra towels and bedding into my luggage, in order to survive a week of sleeping directly on the cement floor like I did two years ago. And ear plugs, to drown out...
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Hello, dear readers, or sawadhi kha. I’m here at the center now, in Bangkok. My dearest friends Nawng Joy and Aey picked me up at the fancy hotel where I was quarantined. They had spent all day, like many other days, in conferences about the future of S.D.S. now that Khun Mae is gone. Nawng Joy explained that my home here had been uninhabitable until VERY recently: i.e. just before I arrived. She had appealed to a young and wealthy...
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Greetings, dear readers…. From 30,000 feet up in the air! I realized, in the middle of this 11-hour flight, that there is another Tale to be told, between the Baja and Thailand (where I’ll be, in eighteen more hours en sh’allah). And this is my only chance to write it. Maria, wife of Odin, at the bird sanctuary I said goodbye to my sacred spots, took a couple outings with my host family, and taught a few more yoga classes to my...
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Wattle Hollow is a relatively small retreat center (40 acres of woodlands on a mountainside in Northwest Arkansas) with capacity for 20 - 25 folks.