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Dharma Trip to Florida and Cape Canaveral
January 13, 2027 - January 20, 2027
Dharma Trip to Florida and Cape Canaveral
Dharma Trip with Catherine Pawasarat SenseiArrive and gather in Stuart, Florida: January 13, 2027
Depart from Orlando: January 20, 2027
Step out of the virtual and explore the actual universe with Sensei and your sangha: rockets, wild Florida, and a very embodied dharma trip.
At-a-Glance
Dates:
- Arrive and gather in Stuart, Florida on January 13, 2027
- Depart from Orlando on January 20, 2027
- See below for a full draft itinerary
Cost:
- Dāna for the Teacher
- Purchase of your own flights to and from Florida
- Budget for accommodation and group activities is currently being formulated. Reach out to the trip coordinator to express your interest so you can be kept up-to-date about the budget.
- You can learn more about the practice of dāna here.
Prerequisites:
- A previous relationship with Catherine Sensei and/or the sangha is recommended.
- A desire to use the trip to grow and an openness to new experiences.
Why This Matters Now
On a previous trip to Florida, Catherine and Qapel spent one day at Universal Studios and the next at Cape Canaveral. Universal was brilliant, crowded, (and expensive) with a three-hour line for a three-minute ride. Cape Canaveral cost a fraction as much, had a fraction of the people, and was much more extraordinary, because everything there was real. It is humanity actually exploring the universe.
That contrast says something about modern life. Much of our experience now happens on screens, where it’s virtual and ephemeral. Cape Canaveral is the opposite: a place devoted to the physical exploration of the material universe, and you can feel it in your body when you’re there. It makes you wonder where else wonder lives for us, and whether we let it in through the body or only through a screen.
For Catherine Sensei, a trip to Cape Canaveral and the teachings are all of a piece. Qapel’s book Psynauts was what he called science fiction, though Catherine says everything in it is true. It echoes the sutras, which speak of sending light out to the entire universe, connecting with beings in millions of worlds and other dimensions, and even traveling to those places. Cape Canaveral, where our own planet’s exploration of space is happening in physical form, is a fitting place to sit with that vision, and she’s looking forward to returning with sangha members.
This is a dharma trip in the ‘Year of Embodiment’: sun on your skin, time outdoors, culture and exploration, and the teacher and sangha beside you.
Who This Is For
- You want to practice dharma off the cushion, in new places and with other people
- You want time with Catherine Sensei and your sangha in person
- You are curious about space and the universe, and about how it connects to the sutras
What You’ll Practice / Learn / Discover
Meditation on the Fly. The trip itself is the practice: transit, schedules, crowds, surprises.
Exploring the universe, inner and outer. Visit Cape Canaveral’s real exploration of space, and reflect on the sutras’ teachings about light, worlds, and cosmic beings.
Conscious community. Sangha are indispensable mirrors for our unfoldment. Experience this expression of the emerging ‘group guru.’
Nature and conservation. Florida holds some of the oldest conserved areas in the country, and rich, unusual ecology. January is also peak manatee season!
Culture. The many activities available in St. Augustine. (See draft itinerary below.)
What’s Expected of Me
It’s easy to mistake a dharma trip for a holiday somewhere exciting. Sightseeing is great, and we’ll do plenty, but the trip isn’t really about what you see or do. It’s about bringing your growth to the road and to new environments. It might be exciting, challenging, joyful, and exhausting, all in one day.
- Stay focused on the Teacher. She teaches 24/7.
- Be on time. Arrive early, before Catherine Sensei, to begin in a grounded state and to keep the group moving as planned.
- Bring an open mind and heart. Some apprehension about new places and new people is human. A spirit of adventure helps.
- Bring generosity and a constant question: How can I grow? How can I support the teacher and community as a bodhisattva-in-training?
- Be ready for a full schedule. Ensure you feel physically ready to keep up with full days and potentially lots of walking.
Meet the Teacher
Catherine Pawasarat Sensei is a dharma teacher and co-founder of Clear Sky Retreat Center and Planet Dharma, carrying forward the Namgyal Lineage tradition of planetary awakening. She trained daily with Qapel (Acariya Doug Duncan) for 26 years, until his passing in 2024, in an apprenticeship that is rare in the modern West, and received lay ordination from Namgyal Rinpoche in 2003.
Awakening through travel is a central pillar of this lineage, and Catherine Sensei has made it her own. She has led and participated in dozens of dharma trips across every continent, Antarctica included, most recently through Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. A former advocacy photojournalist who has lived in the Amazon and spent twenty years studying traditional Japanese arts in Kyoto, she brings the same blend of curiosity and practicality to the road.
On a dharma trip she is the teacher who asks the hotel kitchen where the real food is, learns the local greetings, and is always looking for the next edge of learning. And for how to carry what we find into everything we do. She is returning to Cape Canaveral with sangha, a place she first explored with Qapel.
What is a ‘Dharma Trip’?
A dharma trip is a journey in which the travel itself is the practice. You travel with your teacher and fellow practitioners, and the bus rides, shared meals, unfamiliar rooms and surprises become the place you practice.
Traveling to teach is a central pillar of the Namgyal lineage. Namgyal Rinpoche led retreats in places like Italy, Greece and Australia, and took students with him. Catherine Sensei and Qapel have carried that forward, with dozens of dharma trips across every continent, Antarctica included.
In everyday life, we can retreat to our routines when something stirs. On the road, there’s nowhere to go, so whatever arises, we work through it together. Catherine Sensei calls a dharma trip “a crucible where all the issues get distilled.” Travel loosens the conditioning we grew up inside, and the practice gives us the steadiness to meet it well.
A fuller introduction to dharma trips is coming soon.
Draft Itinerary
Jan 13 – 20, 2027
Please note this is a draft plan and is subject to change.
Day 1 — Wed, Jan 13 | Overnight: Space Coast, Casa Coquina
- Group meets up with Sensei.
- House of Refuge or Blowing Rocks Preserve
Day 2 — Thu, Jan 14 | Overnight: Space Coast, Casa Coquina
Days 3-4 — Fri-Sat, Jan 15-16 | Overnight: Space Coast, Casa Coquina
Day 5 — Sun, Jan 17 | Overnight: St. Augustine
Day 6 — Mon, Jan 18 | Overnight: St. Augustine
- Lightner Museum
- St. Augustine Lighthouse & Maritime Museum
- Mission Nombre de Dios
- Flagler College guided tour
- Eco beach options: Anastasia or GTM
Day 7 — Tue, Jan 19 | Overnight: Orlando area
Day 8 — Wed, Jan 20 | Departure
- Depart from Orlando International Airport
How do I join?
Trip Coordinator
Dharma trip coordinators offer their time and energy to facilitate this experience for the whole sangha. They are also fully paying participants and take on this role as part of their karma yoga practice and as and offering of dāna to the community. Please support them by being as intentional and conscious in your communication as possible, and by allowing them a reasonable time to reply to your inquiries.
Registering
Email the trip coordinator and let them know you are interested in joining .
Asking Questions
In order to honor the Trip Coordinator’s energy, please make sure you’ve thoroughly read this event page (including the FAQs below) for the answer to any of your questions before you email them.
You may have come across this elsewhere in the form of “pay from the heart.” Dāna is a Sanskrit term meaning “generosity.” With dāna, we give as a mutual exchange of generosity. It’s our joy to offer this course, and we trust you’ll match our time, energy, and passion by giving an amount of money that feels good and healthy to both you and us.
The dharma has been built on generosity. No one is excluded for lack of funds. However, it is also extremely beneficial to give as much as you are able.
Typically people give in a range of $120-$500 USD for a course.
As we’re committed to ensuring everyone has access to the Dharma, please feel comfortable to give less if you are not financially secure. Another form of giving dāna is to offer service, and if you are interested in providing support in a non-financial way, we invite you to contact us.
If you are financially secure, we invite you to generate merit by providing more financial support to the Triple Gem. Contributions like these make the difference in supporting our teachers, teachings, and center.
We're delighted to share that we created a short online course so that you can learn more about the practice of dāna here.
In a traditional model of in-person teachings, a retreat center or urban meditation center invites teachers to visit. In these cases the centers have infrastructure and organization costs to cover, which might be covered by an admin fee. For the teaching itself, dāna to the teachers is offered in a bowl. This honors both the sustainability of the teachers, and of the supporting center.
We’ve tried to recreate this approach online. The teachers’ time and the teaching themselves are offered on the basis of dāna, separate to the admin fee. With our dāna offering we are making a direct gift of generosity to the teachers to support their teachings and livelihood.
The admin fee* goes to support the infrastructure and organization necessary to support them to teach. As anyone with an online business will know, the costs of setting up good infrastructure to support effective teaching and connection online can be surprising.
Our admin fee changes based on the date of registration.
Register four + weeks prior: $80
Register two to four weeks prior: $100
Register less than two weeks prior: $120
*We also do not wish to exclude anyone from the Teachings, so if you are not currently in a financial position to afford the admin fee, please contact the course Registrar via [email protected] so we can support you to attend.
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Below are a few of the work and benefits that your admin fee payment is supporting:
- High speed internet (to allow interviews and classes on-line)
- Online class systems (Zoom)
- Registration / admin systems (Eventbrite, Basecamp)
- Communication systems to keep everyone informed, share connection details, teachings and other resources (Mailchimp)
- Online storage (for example, Dropbox, to allow us to let students watch recordings, and to store and share selected teachings in other forms such as podcasts and video later, and Amazon cloud)
- Quality sound, video and editing equipment (both for live teachings and to provide good enough quality for later sharing as podcasts and video). We are regularly updating our equipment to improve your user experience.
- Online calendar booking system to allow students to book interviews
- Website hosting and maintenance for sharing upcoming courses, teachings, blogs and other resources.
We welcome any questions. May all our efforts be sustainable, abundant and for the benefit of all beings!
Contact the Trip Coordinator
Inquiry about Florida Dharma Trip
FAQs
Is this connected to the Emotional Intelligence course from earlier this year?
Yes — it continues the Year of Transformation’s exploration of body, speech, and mind, though you don’t need to have taken the earlier course to join.
Do I need to have read Body, Speech and Mind first?
No — it’s recommended but not required. The course is suitable for people at any point in their familiarity with this material.
Is this connected to the Emotional Intelligence course from earlier this year?
Yes — it continues the Year of Transformation’s exploration of body, speech, and mind, though you don’t need to have taken the earlier course to join.
