FOLLOWING ALIVENESS: WINTER 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: WINTER 2025
Thursday, January 2nd
to Sunday, January 5th
Whispertree Retreat Center
Boonville, CA
Our winter themes – REST and DREAM – guide us into a season of introspection and renewal.
As the earth’s quiet energy moves underground, we too will turn inward, diving deeply into the imaginal and intuitive realms to uncover the wisdom and direction that will inform the year ahead. Our winter practices will invite us to cultivate a sense of wonder and to deepen our trust in our inner knowing, while also gaining tools to continue and enhance our intuitive listening long after the retreat has ended.
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, Riyaz Motan, &Josh Funfer
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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.
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Riyaz Motan
Riyaz is a spiritual guide, teacher, and former marriage and family psychotherapist. His work interweaves Western psychology & Eastern wisdom traditions to help others find freedom from suffering to awaken to their essential wholeness. Through small intimate groups and day-long or multi-day retreats, he supports others in the journey of discovering who they truly are: to uncover who and what they are at essence, and to fully embody and express this in their lives and relationships.
riyazmotan.com -
Josh Funfer
Josh is a spiritually-oriented, holistic counsellor with a private practice – Eyes of Love Psychotherapy. He is an adjunct faculty member at the California Institute of Integral Studies, teaching therapists-in-training in the Integral Counseling Psychology graduate program. He has dedicated his life to following the guidance of our Sweet Mother Earth. In all of his work, Josh helps people find the courage to open, connect with, and live from their heart. When we can view ourselves and the world around us through an open heart, healing happens naturally. eyesoflove.ca
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, Jan 2nd. The retreat begins at 5:30pm on Thurs, Jan 2nd and ends at 11am on Sun, Jan 5th .
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.