The Mindful Unplug returns to the Feathered Pipe Ranch July 10–17, 2027, and registration is now open.
The Greek philosopher Heraclitus observed that we never step into the same river twice. I think retreats may work that way, too. This will be our eleventh Mindful Unplug, and while there are rhythms and rituals we return to year after year, it has never been the same retreat twice. Different people arrive and fresh conversations unfold. The forest and mountains and weather always have their own plans. And, of course, we’re different, too. So once again, my dear friend and co-guide Matthew Marsolek and I will arrive with plenty of ideas and invitations, and very few demands, curious to see what this particular trip down the Unplug river in Montana brings.
There will be accessible exploratory movement and yoga, meditation and quiet, music and singing and drumming, forest immersions, dance, poetry, wandering, conversation, good food, time to be alone, and time to find yourself laughing with people you didn’t know a few days before. And there will be the Ranch itself, not merely as the place where all this happens, but as one of our teachers.
You don’t need to be an experienced yogi, a professional meditator, or a singer or a drummer. You don’t need to be good at sitting still, communing with trees, or doing anything remotely retreat-ish. There will be no entrance exam. Come as you are.
LEARN MORE ABOUT MINDFUL UNPLUG 2027
Lodging options and space are limited, so if you’re hoping to join us I encourage you to take a look sooner rather than later.
When we first began offering The Mindful Unplug ten years ago, the name mostly pointed toward the obvious thing: stepping away from our devices for a while. Back then, even the idea of consciously choosing to spend less time tethered to our screens was still something of a novelty.
Ten retreats later, I think the unplugging that matters most may be larger: unplugging, even briefly, from the incessant commentary, from the demand to have an opinion about everything, from our own habitual stories about who we are and who everybody else is, and from the idea that every minute needs to be filled or productive or documented.
It isn’t about escaping our lives but coming back to them. Maybe that’s what all these things I’ve been writing about lately have in common: grief and bread, gravity and rip cords, belonging and a week in Montana. None of them makes the hard stuff disappear. But they remind us that sorrow and wonder can occupy the same moment. It's possible to be heartsick about the world and still be utterly in love with being alive in it.
Despite everything, this unruly and astonishing life is still worth showing up for.
