The Whidbey Institute — Clinton, United States

A 106-acre conservation forest campus for transformational learning on South Whidbey Island

The Whidbey Institute says its best teaching happens at the edge of the woods, where the grasses give way to deep forest and the boundary between self and world gets a little less certain. It happens, in the Institute's words, through silence, cedar and the slow work of paying attention. The story starts in 1966, when Fritz and Vivienne Hull bought a late nineteenth-century Finnish farm on south Whidbey Island. In 1972 the homestead and surrounding land became the Chinook Learning Community, a retreat center that for 24 years drew people hungry for community, reflection and nature. In 1993 the founders and new collaborators met on the Scottish island of Iona to imagine what came next. Two years later the Learning Community merged with the organization that meeting produced, and it took the name Whidbey Institute. In 1997 the Institute became a nonprofit educational organization. The Hulls now lead Center for Knowing Home, and they offer Hilltop Retreats for solo contemplation. Today the campus is a 106-acre conservation forest with integrated gardens and a four-mile trail network, open to the public from dawn to dusk. Thomas Berry Hall holds up to 75 people under a vaulted, skylit ceiling. The non-denominational Sanctuary, used for meditation and dance, is timber-framed with wood sourced largely on site. Storyhouse sits apart in the Legacy Forest, and AppleTree Garden was planted in a Celtic knot pattern more than 40 years ago. Guests sleep in forest cabins, a restored nineteenth-century Farmhouse, or Granny's, a woodland house moved to the property as a gift from a neighbor. Together they sleep 44. The Institute partners with outside program leaders on workshops, conferences and retreats in generative leadership, ecosystem vitality and community resilience. It also runs its own gatherings, among them forest bathing days that end with singing bowls and a tea ceremony, and pop-up Rest & Restore weekends. Chef Miles Harrison and a kitchen team cook with local purveyors, and the Institute counts the meals among the reasons people return.

Traditions: Forest Bathing, Sound Bowl Meditation, Tea Ceremony, Meditation, Contemplative Retreat

Programs: Forest Bath Experience, Forest Meditation Walk, Pop-Up Rest & Restore Retreats, Restoration & Renewal Retreats, Hilltop Retreats, Art in the Hall, Concert in the Hall, Film screening: Dark and Tender: The Big Island