The solstices and equinoxes have long been important anchor points in the year – moments of orientation and reflection. In that pivoting point within the solar cycle there is a pause, which for me often holds both celebration and some mourning or letting go of what the previous season has brought – before moving ahead again with intentionality. This year, I look forward to marking those natural moments of pause with quarterly retreat days at the beautiful Sauchie Home Farm, in the spacious hills just south of Stirling.

These retreat days can offer the richness of actual silence in the shared meditation spaces with other practitioners, alongside the nourishment of guided mindful compassion practices and evocative poems. We’ll start the day by arriving into the circle together and harvest together at the end, with breaks in silence and a potluck feast of shared lunch. In between, we can also immerse ourselves in the re-wilding land around the farm itself, witness the changes from season to season as we walk the labyrinth or listen to the murmering of Sauchie burn. Maybe we can get a flavour of what ee cummings meant when he wrote

now the ears of my ears are awakened
now the eyes of my eyes are opened

………………………………………………………………………

Practicalities
Dates: 9.30 arrival for a 10am – 5pm retreat day 27 June, 12 September and 12 December 2026
Location: Sauchie Home Farm, Stirling FK7 9QJ, with lift-share options available
For: people with an established meditation practice
Cost per day: sliding scale according to your available resources of £60-£45-£30. If you want to commit to all four days, the sliding scale is £210-£150-£100. If the price is an obstacle to you joining these retreat days, please get in touch!
Book by emailing me at kristine.m.janson@gmail.com.

Things to bring: your own meditation cushion/stool if you like, warm clothes for practising outside and something for a vegan/vegetarian lunch to share.

Summer, with all its abundance of daylight and colour, is inviting us to celebrate what’s good and precious. Rick Hanson encourages us to bring a BIG spoon to the banquet of life – so let’s spend this day practising that and taking in the bounty that’s offered. The challenge here may be that the banquet of life offers the full human palette, which includes not just heartopening love and different kinds of deliciousness, but also heartbreak, rage and bleakness. Can we let ourselves experience all of life fully, knowing that everything passes through? So here’s a warm invitation to rest and drink deep from the freshness of each moment in the good company of fellow practitioners.

 

Previous days

It’s not always easy, to open afresh with new energy, renewed hope. In Dutch we talk about ‘fresh courage’ which may be needed for a new day, a new season, a new chapter of life – especially when the previous one has been hard in some (or many!) ways. What promise is there that something good is possible this time? None, of course, but from a place of reaching down into our steady core and our heart of hearts, we may find the resiliance and resources to open afresh to the possibilities of this moment and go forth into the next. Let’s explore dropping into the living stillness of a springtime retreat day, in the budding beauty of Sauchie Home Farm.