Mindfulness of the Elements for True Connection

Date: Wed, June 124, 2026 — Sun, June 28, 2026
Location: Hollyhock Retreat Center, Cortes Island, BC, Canada

You are nature. Your bones are earth. Your blood is water. Your warmth is fire. Your breath is air. And the mystery that animates it all? That’s ether (also called spirit or space).

Various elements are honored across countless traditions—from ancient Egypt and Greece to India and China to Indigenous cultures throughout Africa, the Americas, and the Pacific. The elements are integrated into spiritual philosophy, healing modalities, and daily rituals. In classical Buddhist teachings, the four elements of earth, water, fire, and air are given as objects for mindfulness, just like the breath. Through practice, we discover that meditating with (and as) the elements helps us connect to the body in a way that simultaneously connects us to everything else, loosening the barriers between self and other—between so-and-so and the cosmos.

Over these four days, on the stunning land of Cortes Island, we’ll explore the five elements through guided meditation, embodied practices, solo and group time in nature, journal prompts, song, and conversation. We will practice grounding ourselves like trees with roots deep in the earth. We’ll feel the fluidity of water and emotions moving through us. We’ll sense the fire of transformation and the ephemeral quality of air and thought. And we’ll open to the spaciousness of ether—that fifth element often forgotten but always present, holding it all.

Program elements (get it?) include:

• Guided meditation

• Embodied practices

• Solo and group time in nature

• Journal prompts, song, and conversation

• Individual & communal ritual

We will spend much of our time in silent contemplative practice. And every evening, we will have time to connect in facilitated dialogue, including within affinity groups where people of color and white people can investigate their particular experiences.

May we remember together: We Are Elemental.

My dear friend, Shawna Wakefield, will be assisting and offering song circles throughout the program helping us connect to our elemental natures through sound and music.