Our Own Teachers: Twenty Years on Mt. Tam

What is it like to be on a silent meditation retreat in the middle of a redwood grove? Each summer for the past twenty years, fifty women have gathered on Mt. Tamalpais in northern California to meditate together for five days. This retreat is held under the trees in a group campground, and unlike a typical retreat, no formal teacher leads the meditation. Instead on Mt. Tam, the women are their own teachers, relying on their own practice and the steadiness of the mountain to support them. The silence of the women on retreat allows them to hear the soft sounds of the forest: the calls of ravens, the buzz of insects, and the wind tossing the tops of the trees, as well as the percussion of their soup pots and serving spoons. Cooking their own food, cleaning up, sitting and walking, the days pass slowly and are all too soon over. Poems, reflections, journal entries, and dreams contributed by the women, are incorporated in the book, and it is generously illustrated with their photographs and artwork. A companion book, Dharma Camp, a handbook for putting on a group retreat in nature, explains all aspects of planning, organizing and conducting a silent retreat in nature.