As we enter the Fire Horse year, we are preparing for intense shifts in our personal and collective realms. 

Life feels heavier and heavier in the face of ongoing state violence, genocide, and carceral systems that prevent people from accessing resources that they need. 2026 moves us into a new chapter where more and more people are waking up to the fact that "life as normal" is an illusion that we can no longer subscribe to.

What do we do when the world is burning? When one crisis after the other shows up in our neighborhoods, on our phone screens, on the news?

2026 is asking us to no longer turn away. It is asking us to turn towards the pain, grief, and loss and metabolize that. It is inviting all the caretakers, teachers, activists, artists, healers, and leaders to tap into resources that help nourish themselves and their communities.

This new chapter is calling for us to do something to respond to the challenging times  from a place of revolutionary love.

It is a time to choose sovereignty, courageous love, and action over helplessness, indifference, and fear.

This is what spiritual practice is for. It shows us our own power to heal, transform, and make change in our lives.

Join Lama Rod Owens to deepen your embodiment of love through the Seven Homecomings practice, along with somatic movement, ritual food offerings, and ancestor practice. We will conclude the daylong retreat with a fire ceremony to open the gates into this new potent year.

In this moment of systemic collapse, we must remember the most revolutionary attitude we can awaken: wanting all beings to be free from suffering.

Tara, female buddha of compassion, embodies the profound power of the cosmic divine Mother who liberates. She helps us to remember to take refuge in spaciousness and fluidity while letting of rigidity and contraction.

In this daylong retreat in Atlanta, we will practice in the tradition of Ma Tara, allying with Tara to awaken the compassion we need to continue the work abolishing systems of violence and establishing a new and more liberated world.

 We are living through an apocalypse, struggling to learn lessons through endemic health crises, economic instability, political unrest, climate change, and numerous forms of systematic violence. However, this moment is also inviting us back to an authentic indigeneity.

We are being asked to remember how to be in relationship with the land, our brokenheartedness, and others through gentle healing connection. In the face of so much change we may find it difficult to maintain our physical and emotional balance.

Resiliency is such an important skill to develop right now. Resiliency is about how well we can meet the challenges of our lives with a sense of openness and curiosity that helps us to regain our balance. Balance means understanding how to return to a sense of being grounded to meet challenges directly.

During our time, we will explore both personal and collective resiliency through somatic based mindfulness practice, grief work, chanting, and prayer. We will explore themes of spiritual abolition, liberatory care, grieving as care work, as well as what it means to be a love centered agent of liberation in this moment.

In this spiritual abolitionist journey, we will rely on the wisdom of Tantric Buddhism, African spirituality, the Black Prophetic tradition, American Indigenous traditions, and sacred herbalism to understand and experience that any state of freedom must center tending to our broken hearts while calling real joy to hold the labor. 

 Healing, Resiliency, and the New Free World 

May 30th, 2026 from 9am-5pm ET

with a special musical x meditation collaboration with cellist-songwriter Okorie "OkCello" Johnson from 5:30-6:30pm ET*

The world is unsteady and chaotic. Many of us are being confronted with the reality of death and change in a way we thought we never would. In the face of all this, it is hard to maintain our physical and emotional balance. Resiliency is such an important skill to develop right now. Resiliency is about how well we are able to meet the challenges of our lives with a sense of openness and curiosity that helps us to regain our balance. Balance means understanding how to return back to a sense of being grounded in order to meet challenges directly. In this workshop, we will explore healing and resiliency through meditation, breath practice, gentle movement, visualizations, and group discussions.

*For our May 30th daylong retreat in Atlanta, we are excited to announce a special collaboration with Okorie Johnson, cellist, looper, improviser, composer, and storyteller, who will be performing at The Anchor after the retreat concludes.

During the intermission from 5:30-6:30pm ET, both Lama Rod’s and Okorie’s attendees are invited to participate in “The Bridge,” an improvisational call-and-response collaboration and conversation. Lama Rod will open the space with guided meditation practice and reflection, alongside Okorie's musical channeling and expression.

Retreat attendees are also invited to extend their day of practice and connection by registering for Okorie’s performance from 7:30-9pm.

About Okorie "OkCello" Johnson:

Okorie "OkCello" Johnson is an American cellist-songwriter whose artistry integrates cello performance, live-sound-looping, improvisation, and storytelling — all culminating in original compositions that collide classical with jazz, EDM, reggae, and funk. His music is inspired by the exploration of African Diasporic melodies and narratives and their intersection with people's perceptions and assumptions about the classical and European nature of the cello. As well, his work with improvisation attempts to embody the phenomenon of wordless prayer.