FOLLOWING ALIVENESS: SUMMER 2025
About the Following Aliveness Retreat Series
As we navigate the busyness of our lives and the complexities of our world, many of us can sense a deep and growing need to reconnect with the natural world. This innate awareness calls us to align our bodies and beings with the earth's energy and rhythms, drawing upon the profound support they offer. By embracing the wisdom and spiritual insights that each season illuminates, we can find greater harmony within ourselves and more balance in our lives.
The Following Aliveness retreat series invites you to experience the wisdom of the earth’s seasons, thoughtfully woven into all aspects of retreat practice. Through meditation, inquiry, journeying, expressive arts, and time in nature, we’ll explore the transformational energies and themes of Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall, while deepening our connection to ourselves, others, and the natural world.
The retreats are designed both as stand-alone experiences, offering you the opportunity to immerse yourself in a seasonal theme, and as a powerful quartet, with each retreat experience building upon the one prior, as you’re guided through the full creative cycle throughout the year.
Each season, I’ll be joined by gifted teachers who bring their wisdom, training, and special brand of magic to their teaching and to the practices that we’ll explore around our seasonal themes. I can’t wait to share what we’ve planned with you.
Join us for one, several, or all four.
Following Aliveness: SUMMER 2025
Thursday, July 10th
to Sunday, July 13th
Whispertree Retreat Center
Boonville, CA
Our summer themes – RECEIVE and CELEBRATE – invite us into a season of warmth, joy, and gratitude.
With the radiant energy of long days and bountiful harvests, we’ll open to recognizing and embracing the abundance that is ever-present and continually unfolding around us. We’ll also compassionately explore the ways we might block this abundance in our lives and relationships. Our summer practices will invite us to revel in the joy and playfulness that naturally emerge when we fully engage with the richness of life, expressing gratitude for its blessings, while also gaining tools to nurture a lasting appreciation for the abundance in our daily lives long after the retreat ends.
We welcome beginning and experienced practitioners 18 years and older. Daylong or multi-day retreat experience is helpful but not required.
Learn about our community scholarship fund to donate or apply.
This retreat will be led by Joryu Myosei and Alexander Zesati
Alexander Zesati
Alexander Zesati is a transpersonal, somatic, and relational psychotherapist living in Austin, TX. He grew up in Mexico City and came to the US on a tennis scholarship, later earning a masters in Integral Counseling Psychology. At heart, Alexander is a Soul artisan and a crafter of transformational vessels. He is highly intuitive, skilled at working with active imagination and dreams. He is also a lover of ritual, meditation, a bhakti yogi, a retreat leader, an amateur gardener, and a nurturer of spiritual friendships. alexanderzesati.com
Joryu Myosei
Joryu Myosei is a spiritual guide, certified mindfulness and meditation teacher (MMCP), licensed marriage and family therapist (LMFT), and intuitive healer (MIM). She took a formal bodhisattva vow in 2011, dedicating her life to awakening for the benefit of all beings and her work to supporting awakening in others and its expression in daily life. Through retreats, spiritual gatherings, and one-to-one inquiry work with clients, she invites all to experience their deepest knowing and to live authentic, fully engaged lives with joy and purpose.
What you’ll experience on retreat:
guided and silent meditations
dharma talks and discussions with seasoned teachers
opportunities for authentic sharing in small and large groups
As well as seasonally attuned:
movement practices
mindful walks and inquiry in nature
guided inquiry practices
guided imagery journeys
expressive arts practices
And while on retreat, you’ll be supported with:
a welcome gift of seasonal treats
beautifully appointed accommodations
a variety of indoor and outdoor spaces in which to relax and reflect
access to over 6 miles of trails and a swimming pond, as well as a hot tub, outdoor showers, hammock, and fire ring (in season)
free time to roam, journal, and rest
delicious, seasonal, vegetarian meals
guided plant spirit meditations with tea or herbal tisanes
Whispertree
Retreat Center
Whispertree is located about 2 1/2 hours north of San Francisco in the Anderson Valley near Boonville, CA on land that encompasses 650 acres within the Navarro River Watershed, a pristine, sheltered valley surrounded by rolling hills.
The lower campus includes beautiful accommodations and gathering spaces in the Toll House, Bunkhouse, and Barn. Each space has its own lounge area and kitchen stocked with tea and snacks, where you’re also welcome to bring additional favorite foods to store and enjoy.
The upper campus includes well-appointed glamping tents and tent cabins with a shared bathhouse, as well as the yurt, amphitheater, and outdoor kitchen for storing any additional favorite foods you’d like to bring.
Our practice sessions will be held in the spacious Barn, the beautiful Yurt, the cozy Toll House, or on the land. The gorgeous grounds offer many spaces to connect with the natural world, as well as opportunities to enjoy the hot tub, outdoor showers, hammock, and fire pit. We’ll have access to six miles of trails that weave through open meadows and oak-studded hills, along with a swimming pond located up the hill at the top of the property. It takes about ten minutes to walk between the two campuses up or down a gentle hill.
Retreat Agreements
The retreat agreements are designed to support contemplative practice, for ourselves and our community, and to create a safe container for all who attend. Following the agreements demonstrates our commitment to intentional practice in community, with the deep understanding of our interconnectedness during our time together.
By signing up for this retreat, each participant agrees to the following:
To attend the entire retreat. Please plan to arrive on time and to leave after the retreat ends on the final day.. Check-in is available from 4-5pm on Thurs, Jul 10th. The retreat begins at 5:30pm on Thurs, Jul 10th and ends at 11am on Sun, Jul 13th
To arrive in time to settle in and be ready for the start of practice sessions
To maintain silence outside of intentional sharing opportunities during sessions and to follow suggested protocols when invited to share in small or large groups
To refrain from using alcohol or recreational drugs on the day entering the retreat and at any time during the retreat
To refrain from using screens or other outside distractions to the greatest extent possible and in the presence of other participants