Awaken In Nature Daylong Mindfulness Winter Retreat

Since the start, Patch of Heaven Sanctuary has invited nature lovers, tree huggers, mindfulness practitioners, and humans seeking respite, refuge, and replenishment to spend a day in quiet contemplation on the grounds of our soothing, sacred spaces through the practice of retreat.

Our Chief Experience Officer, Suzanne Jewell, envisioned a Signature Series to be held quarterly, each event honoring the turning of the seasons and drawing from the tradition of daylong meditation retreats practiced around the world. These gatherings offer what so many modern lives lack—a meaningful pause.

Now one of Patch’s most popular and regularly sold-out experiences, the Awaken in Nature retreat series has become a beloved rhythm for our community—a time to rest, realign, and remember what matters most. Inspired by Suzanne’s own journey and her Vows of Refuge, each retreat is designed to help you take “a day away” to return more fully to yourself.

It means giving yourself permission to pause. To step out of doing and into being. To find stillness spacious enough for your breath, your body, and your heart to remember their natural rhythm.

Because your nervous system can’t reset in a state of constant stimulation. A retreat shifts you from fight-or-flight to rest-and-digest, recalibrating your internal compass toward clarity and calm.

📈 Most of us spend our days in overdrive—juggling deadlines, managing relationships, squeezing rest between pings, posts, and pings again. The truth is, our nervous systems weren’t built for constant acceleration.

📉 But they are built for recovery. And that’s exactly what this retreat offers.

Research shows it only takes a few hours in nature to lower cortisol, restore focus, and improve decision-making. What most of us need isn’t more stimulation. It’s a pause long enough to feel like ourselves again.

That’s what this day delivers.

This daylong immersion experience welcomes you to truly set aside the hustle and bustle of the city and your daily life. Drop into what some call “slow living”, first by considering the first invitation of the day:

• Drop off your phone & disconnect from technology.
• The day’s agenda invites further "arriving" and "dropping in" to the present moment.

• Pause & Reflect at our Intention Board, also known as your “sankalpa” or aspiration of becoming and how you will incline your heart for the day.
• Take Your Seat: Awaiting you is a special jewel-toned meditation cushion, a personal journal, your very own Heart Stone, and color-coordinated yoga mat.

This unique offering is meant to create a core of community practitioners who are drawn to Nature, to lay the foundation toward ways of living more gently within the Cycle of Life with all living beings and to explore ancient meditation and contemplation practices.

Grounded in the 2600 year old practices of insight (vipassana) and present moment attention, the day will guide retreat guests to “put down” the hectic hustle and open themselves to the soothing rhythms of “the nature pill at Patch” which permeates our 20 acre forest preserve and nature sanctuary.

Mindfulness in Nature has been shown by the NIH (National Institutes of Health) to reduce anxiety and increase calm. Many of us “know” that a walk helps calm the savage beast, yet few of us know how to actually experience Nature as Nature itself.

We will guide you through the foundations of how earth-focused awareness practices began, weave you into the neuroscience of anxiety and offer the antidote of the Mindful Pocket Park’s “deep dive” into how to Pay Attention With Your Senses or P.A.W.S. When we learn through Sight, Sound, Scent, Touch and Taste how to offer ourselves present moment awareness, we open to the joys of birdsong, the sweetness of a breeze, the the lilting uplift of the chimes in our Sound Garden, and the sacred act of offering a prayer to the air before our Tibetan Prayer Wheel in the Touch Garden

Led by trained teachers of mindfulness, yoga, resilience and sound healing, you’ll experience first-hand the benefits of increased awareness, concentration, meditation and contemplation. Learn more about each of them below, check out the day’s treats of soothing spaces, tastes and time together.

8:00 - 8:30 am Arrive, Breakfast Nibbles

8:30 - 9:30 am Welcome, Mindful Pocket Park Immersion Experience - Mindful Nature Guides

9:30 - 12:15 pm Deep Dive Guided Meditation, Mindful Movement Instructions & Dharma Talk, Mindful Inquiry, Suzanne Jewell & Adriana Moreno Zarate

12:15 - 12:40 pm Guided Walk of Wonder

12:30 - 1:30 pm Silent Mindful Eating/Lunch/Instructions - Suzanne Jewell

1:30 - 1:45 pm Guided Mindful Walk to Tree of Life

1:45 - 2:45 pm Sound Healing Experience

2:45 - 3:30 pm Reflection Time & Sharing - Suzanne Jewell, Adriana Moreno Zarate

3:30 - 4:00 pm Insight Contemplative Magic Spot Experience (journaling)

4:00 pm Close the Awaken In Nature Retreat

4:45 pm All attendees depart Patch Of Heaven Sanctuary

Chief Experience Officer, Patch of Heaven Sanctuary, Founder of the Mindful Pocket Park @Patch, certified mindfulness meditation teacher through the UC Berkeley Greater Good Science Center/Sounds True training, Executive Resilience Coach and Forest Therapy guide.

A former global TV executive and marketing communications expert, Jewell experienced burnout and C-PTSD firsthand, choosing as her healing path putting her “tush on a cush”. A climate refugee due to flooding during Covid brought her to the Open Awareness Buddhist Center, where she took Vows of Refuge, staying for 18 months and deepening her lived dedication to the path of liberation; circumambulation practice (kora walking around the stupas) and supporting the lama was part of daily life. She most loved the daily kayak paddles in the Little River, recording “Pockets of Peace” floating meditations to “invite others to float in the boat” with her.

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