In this yearlong program, through the creation and enactment of time-honored Buddhist rituals of care and love, we will directly engage the healing power and potential of the troubling emotions many of us experience through daily exposure to the decline and destabilization of the natural world. These days, there is no denying how deeply interwoven we are in the processes of loss and change unfolding around us. Many of us can sense the changes in our natural environments, the loss of biodiversity and healthy patterns of growth that used to unfold organically. We feel these losses every day on a personal and profoundly uprooting and painful level. The emotional fallout of these shifts in the stability of our grounded sense of being can be dramatic, overwhelming, and paralyzing.
This program offers a return to embodied actions of reconnection, love, and healing that honor and harness the powerful energies of grief, sorrow, and anxiety as openings through which the light of joy, love, and possibility can shine. Through both ancient Buddhist ceremonial activities as well as through freshly envisioned, creative ritual practices designed to remind us of our potential to reknit the fraying threads of our experience into wholeness, health, and rejuvenation, we will practice dancing with the powerful energies of impermanence that mark this existence. Walking through the valley of our own shadow, with the support of engaged actions of renewal, remembrance, and beauty, can help us return to the world of light, hope, and joy without denying, suppressing, or othering the fullness of our emotional life.
Program Overview
 | Application Timeframe | Applications close April 21, 2024 |
 | Prerequisite | None (some prior exposure to Buddhist meditation and the healing arts will be helpful) |
 | Duration | 11 months |
 | In-Person Retreat Dates | Sept 13-18, 2024 April 4-9, 2025 Aug 26-31, 2025 |
 | Zoom Gatherings | First Tuesday of each month (5:30-7:00 PM ET) |
Program Overview
| Application Timeframe | Applications close April 21, 2024 |
| Prerequisite | None (some prior exposure to Buddhist meditation and the healing arts will be helpful) |
| Duration | 11 months |
| In-Person Retreat Dates | Sept 13-18, 2024 April 4-9, 2025 Aug 26-31, 2025 |
| Zoom Gatherings | First Tuesday of each month (5:30-7:00 PM ET) |
In this yearlong program, through the creation and enactment of time-honored Buddhist rituals of care and love, we will directly engage the healing power and potential of the troubling emotions many of us experience through daily exposure to the decline and destabilization of the natural world. These days, there is no denying how deeply interwoven we are in the processes of loss and change unfolding around us. Many of us can sense the changes in our natural environments, the loss of biodiversity and healthy patterns of growth that used to unfold organically. We feel these losses every day on a personal and profoundly uprooting and painful level. The emotional fallout of these shifts in the stability of our grounded sense of being can be dramatic, overwhelming, and paralyzing.
This program offers a return to embodied actions of reconnection, love, and healing that honor and harness the powerful energies of grief, sorrow, and anxiety as openings through which the light of joy, love, and possibility can shine. Through both ancient Buddhist ceremonial activities as well as through freshly envisioned, creative ritual practices designed to remind us of our potential to reknit the fraying threads of our experience into wholeness, health, and rejuvenation, we will practice dancing with the powerful energies of impermanence that mark this existence. Walking through the valley of our own shadow, with the support of engaged actions of renewal, remembrance, and beauty, can help us return to the world of light, hope, and joy without denying, suppressing, or othering the fullness of our emotional life.
Program Notes
As Oscar Wilde reminds us, “where there is grief, there is holy ground.” This statement speaks about the commitment incumbent upon us to refashion our relationship to loss into a relationship of sacredness and humility to all that is. To touch the sacred in our lives is to remember our true being, our deep source of interconnectedness to all the presences and elements of the human and non-human worlds. Ritual, which sometimes receives a negative valuation in our mechanistic and determinist culture, provides us with powerful means of reforging bonds of integration that have always been present. The very term “ritual” means “to bind” or “to connect.” Rituals function to connect us to the essence of who we are and how we co-exist with all that is. Rituals can also be constitutive – they have the power to enact or establish ways of being, acting, and relating within sacred view, the vision of all things as alive, essential, and connected.
In this program, we will explore contemplative practices and rituals of renewal and reconnection that have been enacted for many hundreds of years in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. We will also discover the joy and empowerment of creating rituals that honor our emotional being in its bereavement and fear while also celebrating the dance of life and nature constantly unfurling within us through art, writing, movement, and expression.
Time Commitment Outside of the Program
Participants are encouraged to develop an ongoing meditation practice that may include mindfulness breathwork, prayer and mantra recitation, or visualizations. This practice can accommodate all work schedules, so that it becomes something easily incorporated into daily life. During the program, instruction and texts will be provided to support this practice. There is also a moderate time commitment for readings to be explored during monthly Zoom meetings.
Participation Expectation
In order to create an experience that is inclusive and healing for all, participants are encouraged to bring a sense of friendly curiosity and respect to the material we explore, and to the divergent responses from fellow participants. In this way, we will mutually support an optimal environment for learning, self-reflection, and generative engagement.
Prerequisites
None, although some prior exposure to Buddhist meditation and the healing arts will be helpful.
The Wild Edge of Love Path Program and Schedule
Retreat I: Finding our Ground: Suffering, Shadow Practices, and Spaces of Care
Sept 13-18, 2024
In-Person Retreat
In this module, we will gently work to come into direct relationship with the experiences of emotional upheaval that may arise in response to the breakdown of the natural world and its inhabitants. We will do this through explorations of different “shadow” practices – Buddhist contemplative and meditation practices aimed at bringing us into a loving and accepting relationship to our difficult emotions, enabling us to build the strength and resilience to remain present and loving with ourselves, no matter what turmoil we may experience. We will read diverse texts that discuss the importance of consciously attending to our suffering, not with an eye to feel better, but with a willingness to surrender to the mysterious power of suffering to mature and deepen us. Themes include “shadow practices,” the role of suffering in human liberation, what it means to create and embody spaces of care for ourselves and others, and how to carry these modes of being into our active lives.
First Tuesdays of each month Zoom Gatherings
5:30-7:00 PM ET (2:30-4:00 PM PT)
2024: Oct 1, Nov 5, Dec 3
2025: Jan 7, Feb 4, Mar 4
Retreat II: Finding Holy Ground: Sorrow, Loss & Surrender as Invitation to the Sacred
April 4-9, 2025
In-Person Retreat
In this module, we will explore the relationship between sorrow, grief, and loss and the experience of the holy. How can a deep dive into the fullness of our sorrow be simultaneously an invitation to the sacred – to the recognition that every moment of this existence is imbued with a luminous, transformative energy? How can a conscious surrender to the powerful energy of loss become a ritual of healing, wholeness, and renewed presence? To answer these questions, we will work with ritual practices, ancient and new, to re-connect us to our indigenous selves–the parts of us that have always been knit into the fabric of existence and that naturally recognize our place in the interconnectedness of all things. We will read Buddhist and indigenous texts on the critical role of ritual and ceremony to remind us of our agency and healing power, even in the midst of dissolution.
First Tuesdays of each month Zoom Gatherings
5:30-7:00 PM ET (2:30-4:00 PM PT)
2025: May 6, June 3, July 1, Aug 5
Retreat III: Dancing on Communal Ground: Connection with All Beings Through Ceremony
August 26-31, 2025
In-Person Retreat
In this last module, we invite our personal process to dance within the communal space of all beings, human and non-human, within which we are deeply and primordially interwoven. In order to move into a new way of being that honors our environments and each other, we need to cultivate and invite modes of communing that establish us in communities of care and love. No one person can take on the sorrows and griefs of our changing world alone. Much extra pain and sorrow arise when we feel isolated and “othered” from connection due to our fears of being seen as one who cares and grieves. Since we will have forged a strong sense of community over the year’s work, this module will go deeper into the necessity for cultivating restorative group processes, invoking beauty and connection through ceremony and ritual. Through the powerful presence of the communal, we can learn how to relax our sense of urgency that we must carry the weight of our suffering alone.
Program Fees
Residential Pricing:
Includes Lodging and Meals at BCBS during the In-Person Retreats
| Supported | Mid Level | Sustaining | Benefactor |
| $1,935 | $2,535 | $3,135 | $4,335 |
Non-Residential Pricing:
Includes Meals without Lodging during the In-Person Retreats
| Standard | |||
| $1,200 |
Pricing Notes
- Program fees include all components.
- The first half is due upon registration, and the final half is due before the first retreat.
- Program fees do not include payments to the teacher.
- Participants are invited to support Lama Liz through the practice of dāna (generosity).
- Financial assistance can be requested on the registration page.
Application Dates
| Applications Open: | September 12, 2023 |
| Applications Close: | April 21, 2024 |
| Initial Accepted Applicants Notified: | April 29, 2024 |
| Payment Due: | Two weeks from the date of acceptance |
| Program Starts: | Sept 13, 2024 |
Elizabeth Monson, Ph.D., is the Spiritual Co-Director of Natural Dharma Fellowship and the Managing Teacher at Wonderwell Mountain Refuge in Springfield, NH.
Liz was authorized as a dharma teacher and lineage holder in the Kagyu Lineage of Tibetan Buddhism after over 30 years of studying, practicing, and teaching Tibetan Buddhism in the Kagyu and Nyingma lineages. In 2015, Liz completed a doctorate at Harvard University in Religion and was a Visiting Lecturer there in the Study of Religion in 2015-16.
Liz is the author of two books:
- More Than a Madman: The Divine Words of Drukpa Kunley (2014)
- Tales of a Mad Yogi: The Life and Wild Wisdom of Drukpa Kunley (2021)
Liz is currently working on a book on Buddhist Tantra for publication with Shambhala Publications (forthcoming 2024). Her articles have appeared in Tricycle, Lion’s Roar, Buddhadharma, the Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, and other periodicals. She is on the steady council for the Council on Uncertain Human Future, an organization dedicated to exploring our emotional reactions to the climate crisis.
At present, Liz writes, guides meditation retreats, and develops curriculum for people interested in reconnecting with the natural world and in responding to contemporary social and spiritual issues as a path for liberation. She teaches around New England and online, helping people access their innate awakened energies and open awareness and discover tools for becoming free in everyday life.
Liz also focuses her teaching on developing practical methods for incorporating the Buddhist teachings into this human life through the practices of kindness and compassion and on recognizing the natural state in every moment of our lives. These days she derives inspiration from the teachings of Anam Thupten, Mingyur Rinpoche, Tsoknyi Rinpoche, as well as from the wisdom, compassion, and healing practices of the indigenous peoples of north and south America.
