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...

This is a handbook, a how-to guide for planning and putting on a five-day group camping retreat. It is based on twenty years of an annual meditation retreat held in the redwoods of Marin County, Ca. Included are photographs, and a step-by-step guide for organizing an outdoor retreat, as well as menus, recipes, and the equipment needed for cooking and caring for for a large group out-of- doors. It describes the retreat's origins, how it comes into being each year, and what it takes to continue to put it on year-after-year. A companion book, Our Own Teachers, Twenty Years on Mt. Tam, describes...