2026 SUMMER GATHERING

What's In Our Way?

Forging Pathways to Regenerative Community

Goodenough Community

Summer Gathering 2026

June 9 - 14

Sahale Learning Center, Tahuya, WA

We are committed to accessibility

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What to expect

This summer, join us for 5 days of discovering and nurturing individual and collective strength, compassion, and skills while staying in joyful relationship, even during difficult times. Through immersive learning, play, and warm connection, we’ll create a space that is both safe and conducive to growth, where we can grapple with challenges to staying resourced, creative and connected as individuals and as builders of regenerative organizations and communities.

What is this event about?

“What’s in the way?” is more complex than it looks.

Yes, obstacles to fulfillment of community purpose may have to do with interpersonal dynamics. But they may also be affected by:

Our relationships with ourselves
Our interpersonal relationships
Value systems, power systems or reward systems we swim in, often without much awareness of their influence
Beyond-human influences such as lineages, shared myths, and the energies of our living world

“What’s in the way?” is an essential question to revealing what constrains our ability to collaborate and generate, and points us to the skills we need to:

Create relationships of integrity with ourselves, each other and the world around us.
Build our individual capacity to help the communities and organizations we’re part of to better fulfill their purpose in the world

This June we’ll dive deep into developing these skills with a truly master guide.

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This event is for you if:

You yearn for your community or organization to create its maximum positive impact, but are sad or frustrated at its slow progress
You want to increase your ability to be a changemaker in your community or organization
You are willing to bring your most cooperative and collaborative self to this event
You are willing and able to see and talk about all parts of yourself, both the wonderful and the challenged
You are willing and ready to receive feedback about your own behaviors and beliefs and the impact you have on others
You are coachable: you are willing - even excited - to try out new ways of doing things in order to create the impact you want to create

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Meet your facilitators

Lead facilitator: Roberto Rodrigez

Shaped by early experiences of violence, disruption, and systemic injustice, Roberto’s path has been guided by a commitment to repair, responsibility, and what he calls relational integrity: the capacity to show up with awareness and care in the systems we belong to. He is an educator, facilitator, and body-centered practitioner who works at the intersection of personal healing, relational skill, and collective transformation.

Drawing deeply from embodied disciplines such as martial arts, dance, Tai Chi and Qi Gong, Roberto supports individuals and cross-cultural groups in listening more deeply to themselves, to one another and to the subtle signals that shape group life.

To find out more about Roberto, visit his website at www.robertorodriguez.live

Assistant facilitator: Sabrina Simon

Sabrina is the Programs Director for the Foundation for Intentional Community and a natural community web-weaver with a background in nonprofit leadership, community organizing, and facilitation. She strongly believes that community-building is no longer an option during these times of extreme polarization, oppression and disconnection.

Sabrina weaves her diverse background in yoga, grief-tending, community singing, bodywork, and ritual to help build greater collective emotional capacity. She believes that the work of healing our collective trauma is integral to building cooperative systems and most effectively done in community.

She is currently on a global tour of intentional communities, filming and documenting their stories of challenge, experimentation, and success of systems change towards cooperative culture.

A day in the life of the Summer Gathering

Each morning you’ll wake to the quiet peace of Sahale, our beloved land on the banks of the Tahuya River. From your cozy, rustic lodging or campsite, a gong will invite you to our communal dining space for a home-cooked breakfast. After breakfast, you’ll make your way to the Great White Tent, where you’ll meet all of your friends in residence for the week. You’ll get your juices flowing with singing, drumming or movement before settling in for a rich experiential learning session on the theme of the event.

Following the morning session, you’ll meet with your small group of 5 to 7, who will become the friends you interact with most closely during the week. Under the guidance of your small group facilitator, you’ll explore provocative questions or complex feelings raised during the morning’s learning. You’ll weave relationships as you take in your friends’ reflections, and explore and express your own.

You’ll grapple together with the art of communicating compassionately, and with staying centered in moments of tension. The tender bonds that form within the small group are often what our guests remember most fondly, and come back for year after year.

Small group time is followed by lunch and a free hour. These are a wonderful time to continue weaving conversations, or take some time for rest or play before heading back to the Tent for the afternoon learning session.

Late afternoon is chill time. You might take a dip in the river, or join friends for crafts or for a game.

Sometimes an impromptu happy hour happens before we circle up for dinner. By now, whether you’re an omnivore, vegetarian or vegan, gluten- or dairy-free, your tummy knows that it’s going to receive a meal lovingly prepared to accommodate your needs.

Everyone takes turns with kitchen cleanup after meals and basic housekeeping during the week. If it’s your turn to help after dinner, you’ll still have plenty of time to get to the evening activity, which may be a song circle, an ecstatic dance…or an idea that you bring! As the stars come out, you may choose to warm yourself in the hot tub or by the fire pit, hang out or jam with your friends at the “Swamp”, or zero in on a good night’s rest.