Poetry, Meditation & Community in Extraordinary Beauty

Refuge, Reflection & Creativity: A New Year’s Retreat to Nourish Your Heart & Enliven Your Spirit

Begins: January 6, 2027

You are warmly invited to join Heidi Bourne and Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer for 4 days and 3 nights at Boulder Mountain Lodge (soon to be Hell’s Backbone Grill & Lodge), a magnificent oasis among the ancient plateaus and canyons of the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument of southern Utah.

Gathering in the quiet of winter, our New Year’s retreat is a time to meet yourself just as you are, to take refuge in this stunning landscape while mindfully engaging in and exploring contemplative creative expression: writing, movement, meditation, self-guided art, or anything else that calls your heart.

About the Retreat

Offering a relaxed spacious schedule, we’ll begin each day in silence with gentle movement appropriate for all bodies, mindfulness meditation, and a quiet breakfast. Heidi will guide our contemplative mornings with a variety of meditation practices along with a dharma talk to support the day. After time for rest and personal exploration, Rosemerry will guide our afternoons with poetry and writing. Our evenings will be a time to connect with each other – hang out, share our writing, and maybe even have a dance party.

Everyone is welcome. New and seasoned meditators, experienced writers or those just trying it out, please join us. This is a time for deepening our connection to ourselves, each other, and the inspiration of the natural world.

When & Where

Wednesday to Saturday
January 6 – 9, 2027
Hell's Backbone Grill & Lodge
Boulder, Utah

About the Lodge

For nearly three decades, the Boulder Mountain Lodge has been a home base for visitors exploring Southern Utah’s immense and unique landscape. Nestled in the heart of Boulder, a town of 250 people, the Lodge provides an increasingly rare experience of peace and wilderness, while still offering modern amenities to enhance comfort and convenience. Together with Hell’s Backbone Grill & Farm, the Lodge is committed to the values of abundant hospitality, ecological stewardship, and community responsibility.

From suites to essential rooms, Boulder Mountain Lodge offers comfort, relaxation, and modern amenities designed with a thoughtful aesthetic reflecting the expansive and spectacular natural surroundings. Come enjoy the outdoor hot tub, the 10-acre bird sanctuary, fruit orchards and gardens, a lending library with books, music, DVD’s, and a common room with a fireplace and tea service. Choose your lodging with registration.

About the Food

Three daily nourishing and delicious meals will be provided by Hell’s Backbone Grill from Wednesday dinner through Saturday breakfast. Hell’s Backbone Grill & Farm serves fanciful Four Corners cuisine: a blend of Western Range and Southwestern flavors, running through the kaleidoscope of the ever-changing offerings from their farm.

They grow many of their own vegetables, fruits, and herbs on their six-acre, no-harm organic farm, and feature locally raised eggs and meats, as well as their own handmade breads, jams, preserves, pickles, and hot sauce.

We'll be in touch about any dietary restrictions closer to the retreat. We do our best to accommodate these restrictions.

Fees & Registration

Lodging: Variable, see options when you register
Tuition & Meals: $1,500
Deposit to Reserve Your Spot: $500 non-refundable
Balance Due: December 6, 2026

Cancellations:

Cancellations before December 6, 2026: $500 deposit only, no additional cancellation fee

Cancellations after December 6, 2026: no refunds

To Register

• Click here to reserve your room. Choose from singles, suites or doubles. Suites and doubles are great for sharing with a friend.
• After clicking "Book Now," add the "Pacific Mindfulness Retreat" add-on
• 24 hours after booking, your card will be charged for the $500 deposit only. We wait 24 hours in case you change your mind.
• No other fees are due until December 6, 2026. At that time, we will charge your card for the remaining retreat fee.

This is sure to be a very special retreat, please come join us!

Questions? Be in touch with us anytime!
Heidi Bourne: info@pacificmindfulness.com
Nina Brownell: nina@hellsbackbonefarms.com

Heidi & Rosemerry

Heidi Bourne is a meditation teacher in the Insight Meditation tradition and the founder and guiding teacher of Pacific Mindfulness. She has been teaching since 2005 offering classes, series courses, nature retreats, personal mentoring, and trauma sensitive professional programs. Drawing from the teachings of the Buddha and secular mindfulness, Heidi teaches regularly for many organizations, including Spirit Rock Meditation Center, and the Insight Meditation Community of Colorado. Known for her grounded, down-to-earth humor and presence, Heidi is most interested in integrating the common sense, accessible, and timeless teachings of awareness, ethics, and compassion into the complexity of our everyday lives.

Heidi loves to paint, write, sing, cook, hike, and explore wild places, especially in community. Her background in nursing, small business, and as a dedicated mindfulness practitioner and teacher supports her commitment to doing more good and less harm in everyday ways. Heidi makes a point of noticing and sharing joy, beauty, and tenderness in both the mundane and the extraordinary. She lives near Boulder, Colorado with her family after a lifetime living along the rural northern California coast.

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer has written and shared a poem a day since 2006. Her daily poems can be found on her blog, A Hundred Falling Veils. A curated version is available on her daily audio series, The Poetic Path, on the Ritual app.

She co-hosts Emerging Form (podcast on creative process), Secret Agents of Change (a surreptitious kindness cabal), and Soul Writer’s Circle. Her poetry has appeared on A Prairie Home Companion, PBS News Hour, O Magazine, Washington Post’s Book Club, on Carnegie Hall stage, and on river rocks she leaves around town. Her collection Hush won the Halcyon Prize. Naked for Tea was a finalist for the Able Muse Book Award. Her most recent books are All the Honey, The Unfolding, and Exploring Poetry of Presence II: Prompts to Deepen Your Writing Practice. Her spoken-word albums include Dark Praise and Risking Love.

As poet laureate for Evermore, she helps others explore grief, wonder, and love through poetry. She’s been an organic fruit grower, a newspaper and magazine editor, and a parent educator for Parents as Teachers. She earned her MA in English Language & Linguistics at UW-Madison.

Her three-word mantra: I’m still learning. If limited to one word: Adjust.