Opening to Inspiration: Meditation & Writing for Aliveness & Connection
July 18–20, 2025
Creative Expression, Front Page Featured Programs, On Land Retreats
Program Start Date & Time: July 18th | 5:30 pm
Program End Date & Time: July 20th | 12:30 pm
You’re invited to adventure inward and outward to the naturally inspiring territories of this life. Join award-winning poet and transmitted Zen teacher Brooke McNamara for a weekend of nourishing stillness and authentic creative expression through lovingly curated practices of meditation and writing. Surrounded by the magic of the natural world at Drala Mountain Center, your invitation is to settle, attune, and play in the living poetry of the place. Whether you long to remember the free creativity of your childhood, to surrender to the ancient stillness deep in your bones, or to finally enter the right container to tend your book or project, this retreat will support and enliven you.
Come experience and share the aliveness of who you truly are, under whatever busy-ness, distractions, and habits have accumulated. Write your tender curiosities, fierce declarations, and alchemical questions, in connection with other awakening adventurers.
Testimonials
“The combination of meditation and poetry continues to invite me into deep inner stillness, amplifying my capacity to listen and reflect, to move beyond the noise and chaos and witness my own quivering voice.”
~ Heather Baillie“My expectations have continually been surpassed. The balance between space and structure is delicately and sensitively facilitated by Brooke so that I have been delighted by the range and depth we have accomplished in a relatively short time.”
~ Priya Logan“By far the best poetry class I’ve ever done.”
~ Bridget Hanley“The sessions with Brooke and the community she gathers are gently powerful and powerfully gentle. After every session you have a sense of having had close friends for a visit and you would like them to stay, almost like when you were a kid, playing outside and being called in for dinner — you just want to play a little more…”
~ Igno Van Niekerk
Program Sample Schedule
Friday
2:00 – 5:00 pm. | Registration
5:30 – 6:00 pm | Orientation
6:00 – 7:00 pm | Dinner
7:00 – 9:00 pm | Program Session: Introduction to the Intersection of Meditation & Writing Practice
Saturday
6:00 – 7:00 am | Meditation (Sitting & Walking)
7:30 – 9:00 am | Breakfast
9:30 – 12:30 pm | Program Session: Opening to Inspiration ~ Deep Listening & The Aliveness of Ideas
12:30 – 1:30 pm | Lunch
1:30 – 3:30 pm | Free Time
3:30 – 6:00 pm | Program Session: Opening to Inspiration ~ Impermanence & Emergence
6:00 – 7:00 pm | Dinner
7:30-9:00 pm | Optional Sharing Circle/ Open Mic + Meditation
Sunday
6:00 – 7:00 am | Meditation (Sitting & Walking)
7:30 – 9:00 am | Breakfast
9:30 – 12:30 pm | Program Session: Opening to Inspiration ~ The Art of Revision/ Tending the Garden + Integration
12:30 – 1:30 pm | Lunch and Departure
Retreat Faculty
Brooke McNamara, MFA
Brooke McNamara, MFA, is an award-winning poet, meditation guide, and transmitted Zen teacher and lineage holder. She has practiced as a student of Diane Musho Hamilton Roshi since 2010, receiving Dharma transmission in 2023. Prior to 2010, she was a student of non-dual teacher and poet, Dorothy S. Hunt, in the lineage of Adyashanti. Brooke […]
