What if the community you have been waiting for starts with one honest conversation?
NOTE: Registration is a two-step process for those that want a private room. First, select your event ticket (commuter, residential, or camping) and the program fee will be added. If you’d like upgraded lodging (a private room instead of the dorm or cabin included with the basic on-site event price), you will then be directed to our Cloudbeds to complete your accommodation selection. All rooms are available on a first-come, first-served basis. If you have mobility concerns and need assistance finding an accessible room, please contact our front desk.
camping: $395.00 Commuting: $365.00 Residential: $495.00
Early Bird Discount until Jan 31!
We encourage you to register early. Registration will be limited to 24 attendees, with a priority waitlist option offered once registration fills.
Many men move through life without real spaces to talk openly about hopes, pressure, relationships, or the weight they have been carrying for years. This retreat offers a model for that space. It provides a chance to step into a community of men who are willing to show up with sincerity, listen with depth, and support one another in ways most of us rarely experience.
Throughout the retreat, participants will join in guided conversations, shared experiences, and practical frameworks that help men understand themselves and others more fully. We will not be fixing anyone, because we have found no one needs to be fixed. What we have found, instead, is that when we are seen and heard, deeply, we heal together through connection that strengthens and insight that transforms us. This retreat is about discovering what becomes possible when you enter a room where authenticity is not only welcomed but expected.
Andrew, Cameron, Karl, and Logan have known each other for more than ten years. We live in San Francisco, Philadelphia, Ithaca, and rural Illinois. For the past few years, we have been engaged in an experiment we call The Practice Group, a commitment to practice seeing and being seen, knowing and being known. We have built a family-like system grounded in mutual support, authenticity, loving challenge, and the courage to be known deeply. This retreat grows out of our experience and is shaped by what we have learned about men, connection, and the real work of showing up for one another. Our hope is that whether or not participants build groups of their own, they leave with greater confidence in their ability to cultivate meaningful relationships, initiate deeper conversations, and build the kinds of supportive communities they have been missing.
The transformation we seek is not only what happens during the retreat but also the sense of possibility that continues to grow as we all return to our daily lives with tools to create the connections men need most.
DID YOU KNOW:
- Men are lonelier in America than elsewhere (The Economist)
- American men suffer from a “friendship recession” (American Survey Center)
- Less than 50 percent of American men report sufficient numbers of deep, lasting male friendships (New York Times.)
What we hope men will take home with them:
● Ability to show up for each other (and ourselves) by a practice, a habit, of
showing up
● Deepened appreciation for dedicating time to self growth and nurturing your
group or community.
● Making closeness and honesty routine, and “normal”
● Ability to endure “bumps in the road” and navigate without letting go of each
other
● Releasing secrets, and in so doing, healing from trauma, addiction, and shame
● Becoming comfortable asking for and receiving help
● Becoming comfortable with not helping, just listening
● Learning to value silence together
TECHNIQUES we will learn and practice this weekend:
● Grounding, centering, and preparing to engage deeply. How to clear out ‘that work project’, ‘the leaky roof I need to fix’, resentment, worry, and all the other things that keep us from connecting deeply.
● Deep sharing: how to get beyond the superficial and learn a variety of methods for three minute, or three word, check-ins that put us in the group.
● Deep, non-reactive listening: multiple ways of getting beyond cheap advice, quick fixes, straight to the practice of “seeing and being seen”—listening without judgement, listening without agenda. Learning how to pay attention to each other. In the words of Simone Weil, “Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer. It presupposes faith and love.
● “Doing work” in the group—a variety of modes for doing individual spiritual, psychological, social and emotional work as group members
● Showing up together—how we establish groups, sample ground rules that might be helpful, processes for individual disengagement from a group, the transformative power of being together physically at least once a year, and the necessary practicality of meeting by video regularly.
About the Facilitators
Andrew Tremblay is an Enneagram Nine, shaped by a deep love of inner peace and the quiet, faithful work of building unity among those around him. Andrew earned his BA in Music from the University of Delaware. After seven years in Boston, he relocated to San Francisco and now serves as the Director of Orchestra Personnel for the San Francisco Symphony. He finds joy in running, cycling, and immersing himself in nature. After years of searching for an inclusive Christian community, Andrew now helps to lead the LGBTQ+ group at City Church San Francisco, which serves as a lifeline to many who have felt orphaned by the church or have questions about their place in God’s kin-dom. Andrew lives in San Francisco’s Castro District with his fiance, Phil, their beloved three-year-old Dalmatian, Noe, and all of Phil’s many houseplants.
Cameron Miller lives in Philadelphia with his wife, two daughters, and their dog. A native of Montgomery County, PA, Cameron has called Delaware, Indiana, and Spain home. Cameron’s still figuring out what he wants to be when he grows up, but he knows that he wants to work for the public good. He’s worked in nonprofit, academia, city government, and in consulting. Cameron relies on his skills in communication, group facilitation, and systems thinking in both his professional life and at home, and he sees those skills as critical for his deepest relationship, including the Practice Group. An avid disc golfer and newly minted Trekkie, Cameron works hard to squeeze in time for decompression and reflection amidst the never-ending juggle of deadlines and school drop-offs.
Karl Paulnack lives in Ithaca, NY with his husband Dave and their dog Mato. Before retiring from music in 2020, Karl was a classical pianist who served as director of the Boston Conservatory music division and dean of the Ithaca College School of Music. Post-retirement, he is an amateur potter, clinically trained interfaith hospital chaplain at Cayuga Medical Center, and a lover of groups and group work. He co-leads the historic Rowe Labor Day Men’s Retreat and is nationally known as a keynote speaker and workshop leader for groups spanning fraternities, abuse survivors, recovering addicts and spiritual communities. Karl’s very favorite group workspace is “orientation-agnostic” Men Who Love Men (straight, bi, gay, don’t know, don’t care, doesn’t matter.)
Logan John is called to explore the intersections of contemplative ecology, meaning-making, and interbeing. Logan has experience with spiritual direction, leading transformative retreats, contemplative experiences, and he has a deep reverence for land and all beings. His vocational calling has brought him to Christ in the Wilderness as Executive Director where his work integrates interfaith spiritual practices grounded in earth-based spirituality, contemplative Christianity, Quaker discernment, and mindfulness techniques. A former academic, Logan has taught courses in World Religions, Sacred Land, Religion and Film, Social Justice and Religious Thought, and Philosophy of Religion. He lives and loves with his fiancee Mackenzie, their beloved bernedoodle Nashi, and spunky cat Whitney on 80 acres of stewarded land.