Wheel of the Year 2026
with Sara Annabel Riley, Vidyasakhi, Akashadevi and Alobhin
August 19 - 23, 2026
Location: Frogmill, Dartmoor, Devon
Deposit amount: £60
Experience level: all welcome, beginners to advanced, all genders
Age group: Adults
Total suggested cost: (excluding £60 deposit): standard:£180; supported:£110; donation tier (helping others to come on retreat):£330.
Vehicle Pass: Car: £15, Live-in- 6m and under: £30, Live-in- over 6m: £30
See our FAQ for an explanation of the deposit/ dana/ donation tier system. Please do read this if you think that you will not be able to afford the retreat or if you are not sure about the deposit/dana/ donation tier system in any way. We have suggested donation amounts to guide; these are structured to relate to what it costs us to run a retreat. However you are free to give as little or as much as befits your circumstances.
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Curious about how to be a Buddhist in these lands? How can we weave together our connection with natures rhythms and our dharma practice? Can we deepen our pagan roots whilst practicing the dharma? Join us for this Wheel of the Year retreat, where we will explore pagan seasonal festivals in connection with dharma teachings around the Buddha Mandala.
If you are interested in exploring nature-based Buddhism, if you are keen to connect with others who are curious and creative practitioners, if you want to camp in community in the beautiful Dartmoor National Park, come along!
This retreat offers a chance to live simply, and reconnect with the elements. Together we create community, merge with nature, open to new possibilities, and dream with the land.
Our days will include:
Daily meditation and chanting
Ritual and mythic storytelling
Pagan Buddhist talks and discussion groups
Singing around the camp fire
Vegan organic meals
Time for friendship, and community
The daily timetable will be something like this:
06:30am – rise
07:00 – 07:30 – Early Morning Movement Meditation
07:30 – 8:15 – Guided Practice
8:30 – 09:15 – Breakfast
09:15 – 10:30 – Morning circle and community karma yoga (work period)
11:00 – 13:00 – Pagan Buddhist Practice Session – dharma talks, study groups, guided practice
13:00 – Lunch
15:30 – 18:00 – Pagan Buddhist Practice Session – creative and nature based activities, rituals, embodiment practices, arts and crafts
18:00 – Dinner
20:00 – Evening Session- Puja/Ritual
21:00 – Fireside Sessions- storytelling, cabaret, singing, opportunities to share
* There will also be times of extended silence to drop in deeply with ourselves, the land and the dharma *
Things to note
- We have an extensive Retreat FAQ page here. Please read this thoroughly and, if you have a question that isn’t answered, get in touch.
- Please see our FAQs and the document linked there – ‘Are you well enough to be on retreat?’
- If you are bringing a vehicle to a retreat and it is staying onsite, you need to buy a vehicle pass. This helps us to manage the number of vehicles on our sites as space is very limited. Please do not bring a vehicle if the relevant pass is sold out. Please liftshare where possible or use public transport. If you are travelling via public transport, we offer pick up from Whiddon Down bus stop for this retreat.
Teachers
Sara first consciously met the Wheel of the Year eleven years ago at an intentional community in New Zealand. She took part in a Spring Equinox ceremony that changed the course of her life. Since then she has actively followed the Wheel of the Year marking the festival days with ritual practice alone and in community. For the past three years she has been writing the Wheel of the Year newsletter for Buddhafield blending the Wheel of the Year with the Buddha Mandala, bringing together pagan and Buddhist practice. She is training for ordination with Triratna. Sara is the Rituals Coordinator at Buddhafield Festival. For the past six years she has led a team of ten, plus around thirty volunteers, to create and conduct ceremonies and rituals at the festival for hundreds of people. These transformational collective rituals and ceremonies are created through a group process in relationship with the land, influenced by pagan and Buddhist practices, teachings, and mythology. Sara’s work emerges from deep dreaming and active imagination through a practice of meditation, study and ritual. She facilitates workshops that encourage connection to nature, myth and Buddhist practice, with a focus to untangle the conditioned consciousness and allow more space for our true authentic selves.
Learn more about Sara Annabel Riley
Vidyasakhi has been a meditator for 20 years. For most of that time her Buddhist practice has been at the centre of her life. She is passionate about meditation, poetry and loves storytelling. Vidyasakhi has a background in the theatre (as an actor, director and writer), academia and editing. She grew up in the countryside around Stratford upon Avon, has lived in Sheffield, Cardiff, Finland (7 years) and London, where, amongst other things, she worked (for another 7 years) for Triratna’s erstwhile retail arm, Windhorse, in the Bethnal Green Evolution shop. Now, however, she has started to put roots down in Dartmoor, where she runs a guest house and reads a lot of poetry. She agrees with the Devon-based poet Ted Hughes when he says that we neglect the mythic elements in our landscape at our peril, and seeks to remedy that in her practice.
Learn more about Vidyasakhi
Akashadevi learnt to meditate 25 years ago, and was ordained into the Triratna Buddhist Order in 2011. Originally from a small village in southern Germany, she has lived, worked and travelled in many places over the years, first as a Primary Teacher and later as a child psychotherapist. She is about to retire from her paid work and very much looking forward to the freeing of her time and energy this will bring. Whilst volunteering as a teacher trainer in rural Nepal in the early 1990s, she became inspired by seeing Buddhism lived out in simple and profound ways and decided that she too wanted to actively apply the Buddhist teachings to the way she lived her life. Alongside this, Akashadevi has had a lifelong passion for the ancient wisdom of animist beliefs and practices in different traditional cultures – including our own old pagan heritage. The heart of her practice now takes place on that fertile and creative edge where animism meets the dharma. In her dharma teaching she would like to share her sense of the urgent importance for us humans of re-discovering imaginative ways to overcome our alienation from the rest of nature.
Learn more about Akashadevi
Alobhin was ordained into the Triratna Buddhist Order in 2006. He first came along to a Buddhafield retreat in 1996. He is currently an itinerant Buddhist practitioner who is tremendously grateful for the teachings he has received over the years and wishes to share them as widely as possible. Alobhin leads the Buddhafield Anuruddha Project, where a group of individuals practice together in community volunteering for Buddhafield for three months. He has been a part of many Buddhafield opening and closing ceremonies which are structured around the Wheel of the Year and the Buddha mandala. Alobhin has a deep connection to nature and enthusiasm to bring this into union with his dharma life.
Learn more about Alobhin