Nature Is Our Teacher: Returning to the Earth, Sky and Stars

This post is sponsored content, paid for by Big Bear Retreat Center.

Lessons from the Earth, Sky, and Stars

In an increasingly fast-paced and digital world, spaces that foster tranquility, reflection, and reconnection with nature are more vital than ever. One such place is Big Bear Retreat Center, nestled in the heart of the majestic Southern California Mountains. Offering more than just a scenic getaway, Big Bear Retreat Center serves as a sanctuary for those seeking personal renewal, group connection, and spiritual growth. Its unique location, coupled with a range of programs, makes it a transformative destination for individuals, organizations, and communities alike.

The thousands of acres of national forest that adjoins our campus is host to the beautiful Ponderosa Pine forest, ancient Juniper trees, and glacially formed wildflower meadows. Our ancient neighbor on the land, the Tree of Resilience, is a 1,000 year-old Juniper tree which bears the marks of fire damage, yet continues to thrive. This great ancestor of our land, and the oldest tree in Big Bear serves as a powerful symbol for the inner journey that retreatants take here. Despite the pains and heartbreaks of life, we can learn from the tree and discover that our own roots and resilience run deeper than we could ever imagine. Her branches still lifted by the whispering wind, singing of our inevitable return to the stars. Inside our little circle of time, our guides, revealing themselves, fill this world from earth to the heavenly spheres.

Why Big Bear Retreat Center?

We understand that turning inward to be alone with the mind is not for the faint of heart. Centered in kindness, our staff is committed to supporting you every step of the way from this magical place. We collaborate with partners to create inclusive meditation retreats including Insight Retreat Center (IRC), Meditation Coalition, Sacred Mountain Sangha, and InsightLA. We are host to the only annual transgender and gender expansive retreat. Our robust retreat calendar is dedicated to kinship, community and belonging including BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, Recovery, and Women’s retreats. 

Building on the rich traditions of various lineages and practices; Buddhism, mindfulness, and modern psychology, our retreats follow tried and true methods for awakening, with long lasting effects. Your time here will be supported by seasoned teachers such as Matthew Brensilver, Thanissara and Kittisaro, Ayya Santacitta, Christiane Wolf, Spring Washam, and many more. In the practice of meeting our direct experiences with mindfulness, we can begin to trust in the space of loving awareness more than in our pre-existing mental habits. This creates space to walk into pastures of newfound clarity… are you ready to courageously follow the beat of your heart?

Is cost a barrier? Nobody is turned away at Big Bear Retreat Center due to finances. We can meet you where you are financially by offering a wide range of payment options including scholarships, dana (donation based fees), and sliding scale tuition to cover your stay with us. 

What we do here is so much more than a mountain getaway. It’s a process of alchemizing suffering into peace. This mountain sanctuary is a sacred place of returning, a refuge in periods of hardship, and a home for cultivating belonging, friendship and community. 

Practice in Action

You don’t have to have your life figured out to come here. We are a species that has evolved into habitual cycles of fear, and anxiety. Yet that is not the end of the story. As we begin to see how the fractured parts of our “selves” can return to their natural state of wholeness. We create space for an approach of turning towards our experiences, to tending to the garden of our inner worlds, empowering us to engage honestly with ourselves in a way that fosters momentum and growth, granting us the agency to choose how we respond to life, as it is, in a constant state of change. 

Modern society may have infinite expressions of our full spectrum of human characteristics. But at our little mountain meditation center, we offer something else — a place to be with your basic goodness. We invite you to reconnect with the world around you. We invite you to observe the interplay of your innate tendencies through worries, pains, sounds, emotions, habits, and sensations in the body just as a parent would contently witness the play of their beloved children. Is it going to save the world? Who knows? It just might be what’s needed right now. By bringing people into this field of goodness we are cultivating at our mountain center, we are seeding a world with more harmony and joy in it. You are the seeds of that world, and we welcome you to our garden. 

Vist www.bigbearretreatccenter.com for more information about upcoming retreats.