Both beginners and experienced yogis are welcome.

Mark Cain, of Dripping Springs Garden, has been practicing ashtanga vinyasa yoga for 12 years, weaving the practice into his full time work as an organic market gardener. He has studied extensively with certified teacher Louise Ellis; with senior teacher Richard Freeman; and with root teacher Sri K.Pattabhi Jois of Mysore, India.

Joy Fox, of Wattle Hollow, has been practicing and teaching Vipassana meditation for decades. Her primary teachers have been Sri Goenka, Jack Kornfield, Amita Schmidt, and Ruth Dennison.

Cost: $90 (talk to us if you wish to come, but lack the funds. No one will be turned away, if we’re not already full.)

Retreat Registration Form

8 a.m. at the top of the Wattle Hollow driveway OR 10 a.m. for late riser’s hike down into the creekbed.

Noontime potluck on the deck for the very late risers.

Annual Nature/Birdwalk with Ozark Naturalist Joe Neal. No charge.  Bring binoculars if you have them, and hiking shoes.

April 17, 2010 – April 18, 2010  (Saturday 10 a.m. – Sunday 4 p.m.)

Cost: $100.

You can register with this form: Retreat Registration Form

Anna Cox, founder and director of 'Compassion Works for All'

Anna Cox is a practicing psychotherapist in Little Rock, Arkansas. She is also a trainer, lecturer and consultant on psychotherapy, meditation, the expansion of consciousness, subtle healing, death and dying, living spiritual lives and lives of compassionate service. She offers talks and workshops that encourage individuals to conceptualize their life as a spiritual journey rather than as an ordinary life of accomplishing goals that promise worldly happiness.

A practitioner of Vajrayana Buddhism since 1980, Anna has lectured and taught classes extensively on Buddhism. Anna helped to found the Ecumenical Buddhist Society in Little Rock, which supports a variety of Buddhist traditions by bringing lineage masters from around the world to offer teachings and retreats.

Since 1993, Anna Cox has offered volunteer psychotherapy and spiritual counseling, group psychotherapy, and meditation classes with incarcerated individuals on and off death row in a maximum-security prison. She has written and published the free monthly newsletter, Dharma Friends, since 1997. Anna Cox also presents lectures frequently on the abolishment of the death penalty in Arkansas and in other states.

For over twenty years, Anna has traveled the world extensively in pilgrimage to holy sites of all religions, places of human suffering, and to places of great transformation. Anna feels deeply that ours is one human family and that no one should be excluded.

The Great Mother

Saturday, May 1st, 9 a.m. – 4 p.m.

This year we are inviting all the local NWA meditation groups to join us for a day of contemplative meditation focusing on the feminine principles of self-acceptance and unconditional lovingkindness.

We will tour the many Mother/Feminine meditation sites at Wattle (i.e. the Black Madonna, Virgen of Guadeloupe room, the Earth Mother, Gaia, Kuanyin), and silently discover what resonates from within. Meditation will be led by Joy Fox, with accompanying yoga.

Cost: dana/donation. Lunch will be provided.

You must reserve ahead of time, please.

May 14-16, 2010 – Music Workshop Weekend

Spend three days in the Heart of the Ozarks
and experience an eclectic, organic approach to creating music
in a provocatively creative atmosphere.
A weekend of musical exploration and growth.

Registration fee of $250 per person
includes rustic lodging, healthy gourmet meals, and…

* An intimate concert by Jack Williams and Still On The Hill
* Nature walks
* Open mics, song swaps, quiet time to write and create
* Inspiration and camaraderie
* Catering by Chef Tuesday
* Work

Space for the weekend is limited to 20-24 people – if you are interested please don’t wait to sign up. For more information or to make your reservation, contact Judy by phone at (205)572-0056, (479)761-0001, or email at judy@jackwilliamsmusic.com

Plan to arrive in time for dinner on Friday evening and stay through lunch on Sunday.

Cobbing Fun at A Greener America workshop

We will continue to build the newest cob building: Sea World, with more emphasis on sculptural furniture, adobe floors and the last of the windows. Expect your building experience to be accompanied by music, whimsy, and dancing. No suffering allowed.

We will also have a guest lecturer for a couple of hours on the weekend days, Richard Herman, sharing his expertise on permaculture.

Our meals will be gourmet vegetarian (from local sources), some of it cooked in solar ovens. Daily yoga classes for those who wish. This is a time to relax, learn, and commune with friends and nature.

Cost:$130., entire workshop, or $40/day includes lodging, gourmet meals, and hands-on experience.

Retreat Registration Form (pdf)

About Richard:

Richard Herman has devoted his life’s work to sustainable agriculture, animal husbandry and medical care, permaculture, and leading youth in wilderness adventures and education.

Trained from childhood on Ozarks farms, Herman has done extensive and varied work on three continents. He served for six years as large- and small-animal veterinary assistant, followed by stints in herd health management for Heifer International and physician’s assistant in schools and clinics in Kenya. His international experience has brought diverse perspectives in agricultural and health customs and traditions.

A certified consultant in permaculture, Herman teaches at community colleges and by invitation for numerous organizations. He served a tour in the U.S. Peace Corps in Lesotho, Africa, assisting schools with agriculture using permaculture principles. In Lesotho, he was member of a permaculture guild which established weekend workshops for teachers.

With the Lambourne charity for troubled youth in England, Herman designed and set up a farm using animals as therapy for young people. A field instructor with Outward Bound in Maine, he led groups into the wilderness for 2 and 3 week treks, orienteering, white water rafting, rock climbing, and canoeing.

Herman lives a low impact lifestyle, harvesting water from rooftops, collecting water in ponds and soil and has transformed a dry stream bed to a near year-round flowing stream. Using permaculture design on his land, Herman has also developed a forest garden, no-till kitchen gardens, intensive grazing systems, and a sustainably harvested forest; grows rishi and shitake mushrooms; and introduced tree grafting (creating a genetic library for scion woodland).