The Verdancy Project: A Sense of Place
The Verdancy Project: A Sense of Place
Retreats Through the Four Seasons
Join us as we embark on a year-round journey of community, place, and embodied practice
Together we’ll gather for four retreats in the heart of each season, intentionally returning to the same place to feel the shifts in the land and how that reflects within our bodies, hearts, and minds.
Earthbody Presence is thrilled to collaborate with The Verdancy Project, an artist-run space dedicated to fostering curiosity and inspiring environmental stewardship. During four retreats, one for each season of the year, you’ll have the opportunity to cultivate a relationship with 4.5 acres of forested land in Troutdale, OR and witness the transformation each season brings.
Scroll down to sign up for individual monthly retreats.
Guided practices will be woven into each seasonal retreat to connect you with yourself, the Earth, and sacred community. We’ll offer embodied meditation, movement, simple ritual, and forest bathing invitations. All of these experiences will be shared with authentic community. Join us for all four retreats and experience the full seasonality of place and cultivate a deep relationship with this inspiring land. Click on the dates below to sign up for each seasonal retreat individually, or sign up for all four here!
Summer Retreat: July 19th, 2025
Fall Retreat: October 18th, 2025
Winter Retreat: January 31, 2026
We encourage you to join us for all four retreats, though options are available for participating in one, two, or three of these offerings. There are a few scholarships available. Please reach out here if you’d like more information about our scholarships.
The guided portion of the retreat takes place from 10:00am-1:00pm PST. You have the option to stay afterwards to eat lunch, steward the land, and independently explore the lush Verdancy Project ecosystem from 1:00pm-4:00pm.
If you choose to stay until 4:00pm, please pack a lunch.
General Retreat Schedule
Each retreat will have its own seasonal flavor, but here is the general flow of the day:
9:50 arrival + tea
10:00-11:15 introductions, grounding, gentle yoga, and guided meditation
11:15-12:30 forest bathing invitations, land exploration, journaling
12:30-1:00 tea, snacks, creativity exploration, closing circle
1:00 participants who are not staying for land stewardship depart
Land Stewardship (optional)
1:00-1:45 lunch (please pack a lunch if you’re staying until 4:00)
1:45-2:45 land stewardship project
2:45-4:00 solo time on the land to journal, explore, read, dream
Why join us for these retreats?
“When we go on retreat, we commit to attending to what is here. Setting aside our plans and agendas, our endless efforts to get somewhere else. We set aside our cell phones, computers, calendars, and to-do lists. We invite the world to go on without us while we come to a full stop and watch from the shore this river of life that we are traveling upon.
Just this stopping is a gift!
…we have the opportunity to turn with curiosity and care to our relationship to ourselves and to the world we live in. It is not uncommon to remember, almost immediately, that we are much more alive, interesting, complex, and nuanced than we generally take the time to see.” -Susie Harrington
Register for The Verdancy Project: A Sense of Place
Now is an important time to give yourself the gift of retreat.
These four retreats will become touchstones for you throughout the year. This is an opportunity to connect with community, with the Earth, and with yourself.
Together we will celebrate mid-season, explore creativity, and experience what the land is offering. As you get to know the people who are a part of our circle, you will also get to know the plants, animals, trees, birds, insects, and the creek that is part of The Verdancy Project land.
These retreats are gently inviting you to cultivate relationships and breathe into your belonging.
The Verdancy Project: Spring Retreat
May 3rd, 2025
“Spring is distinctly alive and overflowing with unmistakable creativity. This is the season that surges with color and blossom, produces the most exciting achievements from the no-longer-sleeping Earth, and brings newness into light after so much darkness.”
-Jacqueline Suskin
Join Earthbody Presence in the height of Spring season to witness The Verdancy Project land come back to life after Winter’s dormancy. What is coming alive within you at this potent time of year? Take time to slow down and listen to your own voice along with the rhythm of the land this Spring season.
The Verdancy Project: Summer Retreat
July 19th, 2025
“What do plants and other animals do in the summer? They fill themselves up with the bounty that surrounds them. They buzz and open wider…Everyone is alight and alive in their fullest form, activated, on the move, exploring and eating well.”
-Jacqueline Suskin
During our Summer retreat, the land at The Verdancy Project will be bursting with flowers, berries, pollinators, and sunlight. Come and celebrate this season of light, warmth, and color with us. Deepen into what you love, what is most important to you, and explore your “fullest form” alongside the plants, animals, and our vibrant community.
The Verdancy Project: Fall Retreat
October 18th, 2025
“What do plants and animals do in the Fall? They gather their reserves of food, bury their stockpiles, and store their reinforcements…The plants leave behind all reaching foliage. The core of each trunk is full and protected. See how the nutrients are left for the health of the inner world?”
-Jacqueline Suskin
As the leaves of the trees are released into the Earth, what can you let go of this Autumn season? Together we’ll remember the harvest of the Summer season as we let go of what isn’t needed before Winter arrives. We’ll look to the land for inspiration in the height of the Fall season of color and deeply nourish your “inner world”.
The Verdancy Project: Winter Retreat
January 31, 2026
“Imagine all of life underground that is waiting for spring. Envision the resting roots, the sleeping creatures, and everything below the surface that is paused for the season. Feel the fullness of this stillness. Feel the necessity of this calmness.”
-Jacqueline Suskin
Come and learn about rest from the land at The Verdancy Project. There are so many beautiful ways to rest and rejuvenate in the Winter season. We’ll stay warm and cozy inside the beautiful, heated indoor art studio space and explore presence-based practices together. We’ll also venture outside and allow the land to be our teacher.
Connection to Land
The potency of returning to the same land, season after season, offers a felt sense of connection to place.
As you return to the land at The Verdancy Project you return to the same trees, plants, and creek along with the sights, scents, temperatures, and sounds the changing seasons offer. This deep connection to place can feel like returning home to a good friend who has gifts of wonder and awe.
In relationship with the land we feel that collaboration, inspiration, and magic are all possible.
Although it’s often forgotten, humans and land are and have always been inseparable. We were made together and belong together.
Through forest bathing, meditation, creative exploration, and simple ritual Earthbody Presence will ignite your imagination and help you remember your nutritive connection to the Earth.
Connection to Self
In the same way we connect with the land through observing the changing seasons, we’re invited to observe our changing selves as well.
Letting nature be your guide allows a slower way of being where you can replenish and restore your nervous system, allowing time and space to create, manifest, grieve, and dream.
You will be guided through embodied meditation, movement, and simple ritual attuned to the natural world while having the chance to share and receive in our authentic community.
Sometimes our growth edges can be felt while authentically relating or trying new things. We encourage and support each other through community agreements, creating a space where you can feel safe to be vulnerable and try new things.
Our practices are intended to be gently transformative and carried with you in-between retreat time. With every return, you’ll build upon your skills of resiliency and nervous system support.
Connection to Community
More than ever, living in these times of modernity can feel isolating, helpless, and disconnected. With the over-culture spending billions to keep us distracted and despondent it’s no wonder we can feel this way.
Luckily, we have a cure and it’s as old as time. When we gather in Community, held by the natural world, we remember what it is to thrive.
We share our hearts authentically and we listen deeply. We feel seen, heard, and supported. We honor our griefs and celebrate our joys. We feel our kinship and depart longing for our next time together.
Community is powerful. If you’re feeling the call to join a community that values presence, authenticity, and a desire to connect with the natural world as humans have done since time immemorial, you are welcome to join us.
Reciprocity through Stewardship
One beautiful aspect of returning to the same land throughout the year is the opportunity to engage in stewardship that can be seen and felt.
In teaming up with The Verdancy Project to host our seasonal retreats, you’ll have the option to stay after the retreat and learn about environmental stewardship while working on projects that will help heal the land and create new habitat for humans and wildlife.
In exchange for an hour of your guided stewardship time, you are invited to enjoy staying on the land for a couple hours more. Think of it as personal retreat time, integration, or time to dream. Enjoy the creek, treehouse, artist studio, or just roaming around discovering pockets of whimsey on this playful inviting 4.5 acre land.
Our desire is to partner with the seasons and the land, and shape something that will make a positive difference at The Verdancy Project and its ecosystem. What impact might this act of reciprocity have on your heart, mind, nervous system, and imagination?
Lovingly Guided
Earthbody Presence co-creators Julie Jansen (she/they) and Morgan Pace Bolton (she/her) have been guiding seasonal retreats and offerings along with Women’s Circles since 2020. We passionately weave together connection to self, community, and the natural world through presence-based practices.
Meeting Shannon and witnessing her family’s land at The Verdancy Project feels like a dream come true. Our visions of land connection and stewardship are beautifully aligned. We’re grateful to be in reciprocity with The Verdancy Project land and to have the chance to give back through stewardship.
All photographs on this page were taken on the property of The Verdancy Project and were kindly provided courtesy of Shannon Amidon. Thank you, Shannon!