Programs & Retreats

2027 Programs

2027 Registration opens September 30th, 2026!

Every year, the Ranch relies on volunteers to open the Ranch for the upcoming season. Volunteers clean, do major repair and upkeep projects, and anything else needed to prepare for guests. Please consider joining us for a week of work, fun, and fellowship!

Interested? Please email alli@ringlake.org to join the list

What is most meaningful to you about nature?  Have you ever wondered why plants and animals are found in certain places?  How has this landscape changed in our lifetime? Come and learn about the vegetation, animals and plants of the Torrey Valley.  During this family-friendly session, we will explore the wonders of nature around Ring Lake Ranch through sharing observations and insights. Terri Tucker Schulz is a Senior Conservation Ecologist with the Colorado Chapter of the Nature Conservancy. She has focused on land stewardship and understanding the natural world.  Terri is also a former Ring Lake Ranch board member. Keith Schulz is a retired vegetation ecologist formerly with NatureServe. Keith married into the family tradition of being at Ring Lake Ranch 38 years ago. He has also worked as a botanist and has a lifelong curiosity about nature.

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What do a revolutionary 12th century German Benedictine nun, the 20th century founder of Individual Psychology, and a modern-day Episcopal priest and psychotherapist have in common? The Rev. Danae Ashley explores these connections across time in this engaging seminar in a place full of viriditas (greening spirit) – Ring Lake Ranch.

A remarkable figure in medieval history, Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) was a German Benedictine nun, Christian mystic, visionary, healer, preacher, musician, composer, environmentalist, writer, language creator, and advisor to many. This interactive course explores how Hildegard’s medieval holism – examining all of a person’s life for healing – can be applied to modern day healing in mental health. Rev. Ashley will offer the particular lens of Austrian psychotherapist Alfred Adler’s (1870-1937) holism in Individual Psychology as a useful comparison to Hildegard’s practices. Disclaimer: This is for informational purposes only and is not a replacement for care from a physician or mental health professional.

 

Danae M. Ashley, M.Div., M.A., LMFT, is an Episcopal priest, Adlerian psychotherapist, international speaker, and voiceover actress in the Pacific Northwest. Danae uses art, music, drama, poetry, and movement in counseling, spiritual direction, and creation of ritual. She has written for various online publications, as well as being a contributor to podcasts, books, and producing a play about fertility struggle. Danae’s book, My Sap is Rising: A Pilgrimage of Holistic Mental Health Healing with Hildegard of Bingen and Alfred Adler debuted in March 2026. When not reading, writing, or speaking about Hildegard, you may find her traveling with her husband, making sure their rescue dog, Cooper, is living his best life, dancing with wild abandon to Celtic music, and singing serious karaoke. Learn more about her work at www.danaeashley.com.

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Eileen Campbell-ReedHow can writing be a spiritual practice? How is it related to other spiritual practices? For whom do we write and why? Whether you are a beginning writer, someone who journals only for yourself, or a published author, spend a week with Eileen Campbell-Reed exploring writing as a spiritual practice. Every spiritual practice needs daily habits, teachers and mentors to show us the way, a community of accountability and encouragement, and strategies for returning when we are lost or stuck. Writing is typically solitary work, yet best done in community with support, conversation, and feedback. Like all spiritual practices, writing can be both more joyful and less overwhelming or isolating when approached as a shared spiritual practice. 

Evening sessions will include writing prompts and brief times to write in community. We will explore writing habits recommended by Robert Boice, best practices for writing from Anne Lamott and Stephen King, creative process with Mary Oliver and Joy Harjo, and writing in tune with ancestors and sacred presence with Howard Thurman and Louise Erdrich. We will discuss how to cultivate the habits of writing, how to improve our writing craft, and how to engage writing as a spiritually nourishing and sustainable practice, rather than sporadic, fleeting, or painful slog. Poets, journal keepers, novelists, creative nonfiction writers, memoirists, and journalists – all are welcome to explore writing as a spiritual practice.

Brief individual coaching conversations and a mini writing retreat will also be available at no additional cost during the week at the Ranch.

Rev. Dr. Eileen Campbell-Reed is Research Associate Professor at Vanderbilt Divinity School in Nashville, Tennessee. She is author of Pastoral Imagination: Bringing the Practice of Ministry to Life (2021), Anatomy of a Schism (2016), The State of Clergywomen in the U.S. (2018/26), and the #PandemicPastoring Report (2022). She has been a writing coach since 2013, and she founded and hosts the Writing Table on weekdays for pastors, professors, poets, and authors.

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“Who am I when I am not busy? The beauty and rhythms of Ring Lake Ranch and its landscape, support us in relaxing into our being rather than remaining in the patterns of our doing. Our sessions together will include guided self-reflection, silence, poetry, inquiry, and teachings related to the Enneagram Map as we explore our inner automatic patterns and our Essence, our Beingness. 

Weaving the spiritual, psychological, and the somatic, each session will offer a teaching on an aspect of our Enneagram type that supports a pattern as well as a counter practice to that pattern. Participants will be invited to observe their automatic patterns during the day whether riding a horse, paddling a canoe, rocking on a porch, or hiking a trail, and to experience the counter practice. We will discuss our observations in small groups during our evening sessions. These engagements of observations and practices bring a practical application to the Enneagram with specific practices we can take with us into our daily living.

For those who are somewhat new to the Enneagram, Sandra will offer a brief introduction on Monday afternoon before dinner. Our sessions will be on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday evenings after dinner (7:30-9:00 pm).

Sandra Smith’s love for Ring Lake Ranch began in 1991 and she’s been returning ever since. The beauty, silence, and expanse of the landscape is a part of her holy ground. She first heard of the Enneagram in the dining room at Ring Lake! A certified Enneagram teacher and consultant for 26 years, Sandra has taught the Enneagram internationally working in the spiritual, personal, and professional dimensions of the Enneagram Map. She is an IEA Accredited Professional and mentors people who are being certified to teach the Enneagram. Sandra weaves her business background with her theological education to offer individual sessions, organizational training, and public workshops that address the complexities of our inner landscape and the intersection of personality and spirituality. She co-hosts the podcast Heart of the Enneagram and is the author of The Enneagram Map to Your Deeper Self: Living Beyond Your Type. Learn more about her work at AlchemyWorksEvents.com. She lives in the southern Appalachians (Asheville, NC area) and makes home on the land that once belonged to the Cherokee people.

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Whether you consider yourself religious, spiritual, both, or neither, you have something in common with almost everyone of each category: you desire a meaningful life. But what makes a life meaningful? How does meaning arise, unfold, and deepen over the course of a human lifespan? How do pleasures, suffering, routine, adventure, outdoor experiences, conflict, religion, spirituality, play, work, and even death contribute to a meaningful life? We’ll enjoy a mix of short presentation, conversation, and storytelling each evening around this rich topic.

Brian D. McLaren is an author, speaker, activist, and public theologian. A former college English teacher and pastor, he is a passionate advocate for “a new kind of Christianity” – just, generous, and working with people of all faiths for the common good. He is a faculty member with the Center for Action and Contemplation. and a podcaster with the CAC’s podcast Learning How to See. He is a co-host of Southern Lights and supports a new progressive ecumenical campus ministry network called ZOE. He has written more than 20 books, including his newest, The Last Voyage (2025), the first installment in a science fiction trilogy. 

 

*Please note that guests may not register for both Brian McLaren weeks.

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When most people think of religion, they think of “organized religion” — religion organized around the preservation of beliefs, institutions, and hierarchies. While organized religion is still very popular (especially among older folks), younger people are increasingly turning toward engaged contemplative spirituality, faith organizing for personal and social transformation. Many people are surprised to learn about the longstanding minority tradition of engaged Christian contemplation. In this week’s seminar, we’ll explore what it is, why it matters now, and how to experience it in your daily life through simple ritual, liturgy, ceremony, and celebration.

Brian D. McLaren is an author, speaker, activist, and public theologian. A former college English teacher and pastor, he is a passionate advocate for “a new kind of Christianity” – just, generous, and working with people of all faiths for the common good. He is a faculty member with the Center for Action and Contemplation. and a podcaster with the CAC’s podcast Learning How to See. He is a co-host of Southern Lights and supports a new progressive ecumenical campus ministry network called ZOE. He has written more than 20 books, including his newest, The Last Voyage (2025), the first installment in a science fiction trilogy. 

 

*Please note that guests may not register for both Brian McLaren weeks.

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Dietrich Bonhoeffer has been claimed by nearly everyone — pacifists and liberation theologians, death-of-God radicals and Christian nationalists, even a man who murdered an abortion doctor. This four-session seminar seeks to ask the question: who was Bonhoeffer? We’ll trace the man himself rather than the icon — the privileged Berlin son whose formation handed him both the tools to see Hitler’s Germany clearly and the theological errors that helped make Nazism possible. Session one takes up his world and his early nationalism; session two follows him to Harlem, where a Black church cracked the shell; session three walks into the church struggle, Finkenwalde, the conspiracy, and the cell at Tegel; session four turns to the fights over his legacy and asks what an honest Bonhoeffer demands of us now. No prior knowledge of Weimar Germany or academic theology required — only a willingness to meet someone more interesting than a saint.

Tripp Fuller is the founder and host of the #1 theology podcast, Homebrewed Christianity. As an author, speaker, podcaster, and professional theologian he is committed to bringing the best resources from the academy to the church so we can brew a more robust faith today.

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How I tell the story could be described as: Music as a spiritual practice. I will play songs and I will talk about how my process of songwriting  functions as a way to know my own heart. The writing process gives me clarity about what my heart’s trying to tell me, and then when I sing the finished songs, they hold me accountable to the best of what I aspire to. 

There are songwriters who chronicle life; David Wilcox metabolizes it. He has long been a quiet force in American folk music – a musician’s musician, a writer’s writer, and a seeker whose gift lies in making the personal feel universal. With The Way I Tell the Story (2025), Wilcox proves that resilience isn’t just a survival skill—it’s an art form. The music he’s creating now comes from a place that can’t be faked. In recent years, Wilcox’s life has been shaped by his wife’s Parkinson’s diagnosis, redefining his sense of time, love, and presence. “Times get tough, and music gets good,” he says, and means it.

In 1989, Wilcox‘s How Did You Find Me Here became an unexpected hit, selling over 100,000 copies largely by word of mouth—an unheard-of feat for a debut folk record. Critics took note of his deft guitar work and emotional clarity, but it was the unassuming wisdom threaded through his lyrics that truly set him apart. Rolling Stone praised his “soulful insight,” while The New York Times called his music “a kind of open-hearted therapy.”

A string of acclaimed albums refined his reputation as a songwriter who knows how to say hard things in soft, lasting ways. Over the years he’s shared stages and collaborations with artists like Shawn Colvin, Patty Larkin, and John Gorka. Wilcox’s influence runs deep, especially among younger artists trying to build something real, and his music still resonates. His songs remain a rare kind of company. Not flashy. Just deeply, generously alive.

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Have you ever wanted to write creatively? Begin or finish a short story or personal essay? This introductory workshop will help writers begin to develop their ability to write fiction or personal essays. Each participant in the writing workshop will have their writing critiqued by a professional writer, and will learn about the fundamental elements of creative prose writing, such as developing a voice, using dialogue and description, creating characters, and developing conflict.

Michael C. White’s new novel Skunktown will appear in 2027. He is the author of seven previous novels: Soul Catcher (William Morrow), which was a Booksense and Historical Novels Review selection, as well as a finalist for the Connecticut Book Award; A Brother’s Blood (Harper Collins), which was a New York Times Book Review Notable Book, a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers nominee, and an Edgar Award Finalist; The Blind Side of the Heart (Harper Collins), A Dream of Wolves (Harper Collins), and The Garden of Martyrs (St. Martins), also a Connecticut Book Award finalist and made into an opera. His novel Beautiful Assassin (William Morrow) won the 2011 Connecticut Book Award for Fiction.  His last novel, Resting Places, was recently selected as a runner-up for the Indie Author Project General Fiction Award.  A collection of his short stories, Marked Men, was published by the University of Missouri Press. He has also published over 50 short stories in literary and national magazines. He was the founding editor of the yearly fiction anthologies American Fiction and Dogwood, and was the founder and former director of Fairfield University’s MFA in Creative Writing Program. He lives along the New England shore with his wife Reni and his two Labradors, Falstaff and Lincoln.

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If you’ve done the vocational discernment work and still feel lost, if the promise of “finding your calling” has left you more anxious than inspired; or if the call story that once shaped your life has started feeling more like feels like it stands in the way of it, then this week is for you. 

We’ll explore how much of the talk around vocation quit working for some of us. We’ll sit with the very real disillusionment of burned-out community leaders, exhausted caregivers, and people whose lives never fit the script they were handed. 

But just a warning: instead of offering you a better revised framework—which would just be dressing up the same challenges in nicer clothes—we’ll try on  another way entirely. We’ll companion one another in exploring how to live when we stop trying to author ourselves so skillfully, how to hold multiple contradictory parts of ourselves at once, and maybe even what it means to refuse the question of purpose altogether. Through conversation, witness, and practice, we’ll stay present to the gift of unraveling. 

Expect less clarity than permission. Fewer answers than company. 

You might not find your one true calling, but you might find yourself among friends in the messiness of being alive.

Rev. Dr. Brian Ammons is pastor of First Church, Belfast, Northern Ireland.  Brian is a pastor, chaplain, spiritual adviser, and maker of transformative space for community to form. Born and reared in North Carolina, Brian and his husband, peace activist Gareth Higgins, lead peace-building journeys, convene storytellers and their stories, nurture artists and historians of all sorts, and lead toward the transformation of society for the better. 

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Celebrated bassist and composer Ike Sturm will invite us to explore the Ring Lake Ranch landscape through sound, supporting guests as we listen, reflect, and even improvise together, weaving human-made sounds with the soundscape of the Wind River Valley.

Bassist and composer Ike Sturm was raised in a musical home in Wisconsin, learning from his father, renowned composer and arranger, Fred Sturm. Ike has performed with Gene Bertoncini, Theo Bleckmann, Ingrid Jensen, Donny McCaslin, Bobby McFerrin, Ben Monder, Maria Schneider and Kenny Wheeler. He has played on four Downbeat award-winning recordings, as well as several Steve Reich releases on Canteloupe and Nonesuch Records. He has performed with Alarm Will Sound and the International Contemporary Ensemble, along with numerous creative ensembles in New York. Ike studied jazz and classical bass and composition while earning undergraduate and graduate degrees at the Eastman School of Music. In addition, he studied privately with legendary bassist Dave Holland. He currently leads a new worshipping community in New York City called Finding Our Way Home, as a part of his creative work with connect.faith. In 2022, he was commissioned by Montview Presbyterian Church in Denver, CO, to write a new large-scale piece called “RIVER” for 100 voices, string orchestra and the Ike Sturm Ensemble. 

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Check Out Past Seminars 1969 - 2023

Please note: Ring Lake Ranch is open only from late May through early September.

Ring Lake Ranch seminars consist of four evening sessions during the week, usually 90 minutes in length. The style and content of the seminars change with each leader. Seminar leaders are usually happy to talk with guests outside of the seminars, but the topics are presented entirely within the evening sessions, to ensure that all guests have a chance to participate.

Like all activities at Ring Lake Ranch, with the exception of cabin cleaning and helping with meal clean-up, the Ranch seminars are optional for guests.

Volunteering at the Ranch

Volunteers are a vital part of the Ranch! 

Outside of volunteer week, we have a couple of volunteer spaces available every week for those who want to pitch in by setting tables for meals, staining cabins, or doing small maintenance projects. We ask for about 20 contribution hours for the week in exchange for fees covered. No construction experience is required to volunteer, and we’ll never ask a volunteer to take on a project beyond their skillset! 

Please note that volunteer spaces are not available in the off season (mid- September – mid-May), and official registration is required. 

If you have any further questions regarding volunteer opportunities or expectations, please email us at info@ringlake.org.

Group Retreats

The Ranch is a great place to book a group retreat! Whether your group would like to reserve a block of cabins during a seminar week, or book the entire Ranch to run your own programming, we’re happy to work with you to meet your needs. We’ve hosted non-profits, family reunions, and school groups! We have a number of flexible meeting spaces and can include our standard activities in your fees. For details and pricing, please email our director at info@ringlake.org.