Retreats and Workshops at Manzanita Village 2010
Advance pre-registration is required for all Retreats and Workshops
Questions: +1-760-782-9223
Wild Mind Retreat September 3-6
Circles – beyond gender binaries. October 1-3
Warrior Heart Path November 12-14
Alchemy of Change Professional Certification Training October 25 – November 6
Other Autumn Workshops and Retreats TBA
Winter Retreat December 26-January 3
I am grateful beyond words for the remarkable work of Caitríona and Michele. No spiritual teachers I know bring a broader, more relevant range of knowledge, experience, and well-honed skills for awakening us to fullness of being. While thoroughly schooled in ancient traditions, their work is fresh and bold, igniting both courage and joy for meeting the challenges of today’s world. For over a decade my own life and teaching has been enriched by their adventurous creativity and passionate respect for life. Joanna Macy. Activist, Teacher, and Author of “World as Lover, World as Self” and “Coming Back to Life”, and Co-founder of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship
Meditation Retreat
Wild Mind~Living Freedom
September 3-6
(Friday afternoon – Monday afternoon)
Michele Benzamin-Miki and Caitriona Reed
“Outstanding … rich and deep.What you’ve got going here is brilliant.
I think what you are doing is dazzling!” Val Kilner Marina del Rey
“It must be obvious… that there is a contradiction in wanting to be perfectly secure
in a universe whose very nature is momentariness and fluidity.” Alan Watts
Beginners welcome. A three-day retreat is the perfect length for an introduction/immersion into skills that will help you develop and deepen your focus, clarity, insight, and compassion.
Years ago Alan Watts wrote a book called The Wisdom of Insecurity. It’s one of those books whose titles tell all! How liberating it is when instead of seeking guarantees and assurances, you learn to trust and use your own resourcefulness and the creativity you already have, and to use your innate abilities to live the life you were born for.
… moving from fear to curiosity, from resentment to patience, from procrastination to energy, from anxiety to calm, from isolation to connection …
We are talking about the sorts of skills that meditation practice helps you to access and develop – the power of becoming aware of both what is happening around you as well as to how you respond – so that you choose how you respond, and move from fear to curiosity, from resentment to patience, from procrastination to energy, from anxiety to calm, from isolation to connection. You were created a uniquely configured human being with unimaginable potential, and with a unique set of views, values, and a mind that can work fully to your advantage when you let it. Meditation practice is not about you adopting someone else’s values and views, but it is about you finding ways to eliminate internal conflicts you may be carrying, through the use of awareness, clarity, energy, and by learning to be kinder to yourself.
When you choose to believe that there really are no insurmountable problems, all you see are the opportunities you have been given to find new solutions
We choose to believe that there are no problems, only opportunities to discover new solutions. That may be just a belief, but it’s one we invite you to adopt if you wish.
So, in the spirit of the Wisdom of Insecurity, join us for this solution-based meditation retreat.
Manzanita Village is surrounded by mountains, forests and meadows. To unaccustomed eyes the forest is a tangle, like the mind itself! After becoming familiar with it, you will see it as a world rich with patterns, potential, and implicit order; rich with life – adaptable and interwoven.Please join us for a weekend immersion training where you may even learn to take on some of the best characteristics of the tough and resilient forest. This is a silent retreat with instruction and talks. Bring a friend for our special 50% reduced rate. Open to beginners.
$350 includes food and accommodation + Teacher Dana
Register Here
$250 + $100 for accommodation and meals
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Select options (e.g. if you require a private room)
from the drop down menu on the next page.
To register by mail send a check to
Ordinary Dharma PO Box 67, Warner Springs, CA 92086
Autumn Circles Retreat-Conference
October 1-3
Safe Space for trans women and men and allies Print or download flier
for all transgendered people, friends, family, and allies
Elise Turen PhD, Michele Benzamin-Miki, Caitriona Reed
The ease and the freedom I feel at Manzanita lets me let go and feel free…. free of all fears and the sense of abandonment I sometimes feel in my everyday life. What is more beautiful than a human being who has just realized that she is actually alive? –Sara Carmichael, participant at Circles
Partial scholarships available. . . for all women, men, g/q ,and others questioning gender binaries and stereotypical identity/ies
Conference highlights include:
- Workshops and discussion groups co-created by participants
- Accommodation and fine vegetarian, mostly organic meals
- An atmosphere of safety, confidentiality, and ease
- Time for relaxation, sauna, naps, walks in the surrounding hills
Exploration of issues such as:
- Internalized oppression, internalized transphobia
- Identity beyond binary paradigms (female/male straight/gay etc etc)
- The Wisdom of Insecurity, trusting our Power
- Class, Race, and Gender
- Strategies for facilitating change: personal, communal, and societal
- Trans issues and the law
- Coming Out to Our Family and Children
- The place for genderqueer, trans, and ‘two-spirit’ people in traditional societies
- Buddhism, Christianity, Spiritual Practice and Trans Issues
- Transition issues
- Relationships
- Transgender Liberation Movement ‘
- Descansos’ reflections on and the landmarks of our life’s journey
- Dance and body-image
Please note: this is not just for trans people ‘in transition.‘ We are all always, all of us, in transition of one sort or another – whether you are gay, straight, trans or otherwise. And if you think you have got your life together, please come anyway to give your support those who do not! We look forward to sharing some time with you.
Print or download flier Registration: $250 includes food and accommodation
Register Here
$250
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To register by mail send a check to
Ordinary Dharma PO Box 67, Warner Springs, CA 92086
Can you help support our scholarship fund? + optional donations
Alchemy of Change
Professional Certification Certification Training
October 25- November 6
Are you a player or just a spectator? Are you passionate about learning, and developing new skills to deepen your essential understanding of the world?
Learn creative problem-solving, and communication skills that will give you the leading edge in any and every situation.
This course is packed with specific skills, too many to name; but more importantly it will give you the means, and the templates, to evolve new skills – as many as you care to choose for yourself!
This training is about how learning happens, not as theoretical knowledge, but as a window into the dynamic workings of the mind itself.
Reflect for a moment on the difference between driving your car knowing that the basic users manual is in your glove compartment, and driving your car knowing that you have the expertise of a factory trained engineer, and the skill of an experienced race car driver.
Whether you use these skills for therapeutic purposes (as a new career, or to complement your current career) or in business, or for educational purposes, they will transform what you do for the rest of your life! Most importantly they will change how you do what you do.
You will learn not just that it is a good idea to live at cause, you will also learn how to do so!
Twelve Day Training October 25-November 6
Level 1 October 25-30
Level 2 November 1-6
Fall Warrior Heart Path
The Heart of Non-violence and the path of Aiki Toho Iaido sword
November 12-14
Michele Benzamin-Miki Sensei
The Japanese sword has been used for war for too many centuries. The time has come to find ways to use it to make peace, to transform it; and by transforming its violent legacy, to transform ourselves. Nishio Sensei
Please join us for Warreot Hert Path!
This is a great way to try out a martial art path and to set a warrior heart intention for the springtime. You will be training at your level and capacity, so all levels are welcome. Learn physical and mental skills that empower you, in a supportive and fun way.
Vegetarian food & lodging for two nights included
$225 (Saturday only $125) (You are welcome to come Friday night)
Beginners welcomed – training for all levels
Register Here
Check price with Michele Sensei 310-339-3531
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To register by mail send a check to
Ordinary Dharma PO Box 67, Warner Springs, CA 92086
MORE FALL DATES TO BE ANNOUNCED
MID-WINTER RETREAT
December 26, 2010—January 3, 2011
Beginners Welcome – Partial Attendance okay
Meditation for a New Year
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new
landscapes, but in having new eyes. Marcel Proust
Mid-winter is a traditional time for retreat and silent practice to regenerate and re-energize yourself for the coming year. Join us to restore your spirit and vision as we enter a NEW DECADE!
Beginners are welcome. Partial attendance, with a three nights minimum, is also okay.
This is a silent retreat including teachings on meditation and Buddhist perspectives on leading a congruent and authentic life, reawakening your connection to the Earth, and to your own natural abilities for inner transformation, creativity, compassion, and learning.
Days include teachings, meditation, instructional talks, discussion, movement, interactive exercises, and dialog under the guidance of Caitriona Reed and Michele Benzamin-Miki.
Eight days~ December 26 – January 3
(Begins 4:00 PM December 26 – Ends 1:00 PM January 3)
PARTIAL ATTENDANCE OKAY (minimum three nights)
Registration includes food and lodging $700 + $300 accommodation
Partial attendance $400 three nights + dana (3 night minimum)
I love the land here. The chaparral forest, on desert’s edge,
beneath countless stars is itself a teacher. Lawrence Ellis, Oakland
Register Here
$700 + $300 for accommodation
Click here and please be patient. The next page can take up to a minute to load. Use drop-down menu to select options e.g. private room.
To register by mail send a check to
Ordinary Dharma
PO Box 67, Warner Springs, CA 92086
“We live with a constructed ’self’ – our work is to learn to reconstruct it, reinvent it, or even step right outside of the limitations we have imagined for it. This is not something that is esoteric or even difficult. There are ways to make this journey to your authentic ’self’ very simple and direct. It doesn’t require that you conform to a new belief-system, or to someone else’s idea of who you are. On the contrary, it is based on the bold assumption that you already know what living a fully congruent and integrated life would be for you; and that you only require some simple tools, and the encouragement to use them.” CR
