Planned Retreats

registration is open!

The Human in Nature: A Writers' Weekend
June 7-10, 2024

Join New Hampshire author Pam Bernard to study writers who immerse themselves in nature, then find your own language for what you're yearning to say. Writing and discussion sessions will be surrounded by mindful indoor and outdoor experiences, so you can draw inspiration from our pristine forests and fields. Choose to customize your special weekend with optional individual services like massage, energy work and more. 

Whether you are an environmentalist or a mystic, engaging with the natural world through language can be both restorative and deeply challenging. Though the writing sessions with Pam Bernard are loosely sequenced, you are welcome to attend any or all.

click to email retreats@wildtrailsfarm.com for availability, full details and to book

Here’s the tentative schedule (may be adjusted based on the weather):

Friday, June 7

2 p.m.: Check into your room and make yourself at home

5 p.m.: Introduction to Wild Trails Farm

6 p.m.: Dinner by Heritage Deli & Bakery (vegan and gluten-free options are available for all meals)

7:15 p.m.: Restorative yoga and guided meditation (yoga nidra) with Jo Bregnard Drop in to your creative self through a gentle movement sequence, then enjoy a soothing guided meditation, crafted to set you up for a weekend of easeful flow.

Saturday, June 8

Self-serve continental breakfast, with Vermont Coffee Company coffee and a variety of teas

8 a.m.: Welcome session Get to know our staff and your fellow participants, learn about Wild Trails’ retreat philosophy and share what you’re looking to get out of the weekend.

9 a.m.: Creative Writing: The Possibilities with Pam Bernard We will explore ways, through language, to express our unique inquiry into the natural world—not simply to find joy or a sense of well-being in its raw beauty and majesty, but to better understand our own humanness, our failings and triumphs, within the wider world of nature. We will look at writers like Barry Lopez, Annie Dillard, Mary Oliver, and Terry Tempest Williams. The genres used by the best writers who explore the natural world are, of course, also available to us—memoir, poetry, and creative non-fiction. You will dig into one genre, or any combination of the three. Consider this class a laboratory of possibilities.

11:15: Lunch

12:30 p.m.: Creative Writing: Creating a Seedbed with Pam Bernard The goal of the weekend is to find a way to, as Thoreau said, return to our senses. In that spirit, we will not be writing simply about nature, but about our experience of being human in nature—to help us be fully alert and alive in all aspects of our lives within the wider realities of the natural world. This class will create a seedbed for the weekend’s work, as well as for writing beyond your Wild Trails experience. You will work from prompts to begin writing in whatever genre resonates for you in the deepest way, or helps you harness the moment. Brief writing assignments will accrue, providing a rich soil for further writing.

2:30 p.m.: Mindful Outdoor Experience with Jo Bregnard Embrace the beauty of summer in Vermont through a unique practice of connection with self, place and community that’s both potent and intuitive. We’ll bond with the more-than-human world on Wild Trails’ 472 picturesque acres through forest immersion, using our skills of observation and expanded awareness. The session will close with some guided journaling.

4 p.m.: Free time for optional individual retreat services or relaxation

6 p.m.: Dinner

Sunday, June 8

Self-serve continental breakfast, with Vermont Coffee Company coffee and a variety of teas

9 a.m.: Creative Writing: Slow Seeing with Pam Bernard You have begun to explore the power of language in some dynamic ways—direct observation, memory, association, and slow seeing. In the process, you are creating an awareness of what surrounds you, while at the same time developing a healthier, more malleable, relationship with your interior world. Choose one passage or longer piece to work on and shape—into a rough draft of a short memoir, or a rough draft of a poem, or a piece of creative non-fiction. We will take time for you to approach your accumulating work, to continue writing and to begin to find meaning in your words.

11:15 a.m.: Lunch

12:30 p.m.: Creative Writing: Your Words Celebrated with Pam Bernard Your words, celebrated and in the air! You will have the opportunity to share some of what you have written, though this is optional. The bulk of this class will be devoted to individualized attention and feedback, both as a class critiquing exercise and one-on-one.

2:30 p.m.: Closing session Gather together formally as a group to share connections made over the weekend, capturing the tools and resources you’ll bring home to support your writing going forward.

4 p.m.: Free time for optional individual retreat services or relaxation

6 p.m.: Dinner

Monday, May 13

Self-serve continental breakfast, with Vermont Coffee Company coffee and a variety of teas before you check out at 11 a.m., feeling inspired by the natural beauty of Wild Trails Farm and feeling your new-found confidence as a writer.

click to email retreats@wildtrailsfarm.com for availability, full details and to book

Pricing for this weekend includes three nights of lodging as well as all group sessions and meals noted above. All other activities are on your own, including any additional individual retreat services (optional). Rates for this all-inclusive long weekend range from $595 for space in a two-person shared room with a shared bath (additional twin beds and privacy screens available), to $1855 for a double-occupancy room with a private bath (ideal for a couple). There are lots of options in between so expand the pricing detail link below and reach out now for current availability. Rates are subject to 9% Vermont lodging tax.

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