SURPRISE FARM RETREAT CENTER
Intentions
Surprise Farm Retreat Center offers educational programs in the surround of nature, organic farming, and heritage sites. The experience of being in place, with creative intentional community, encourages well-being.
Our Intentions include learning from each other about meaning and purpose, in workshops and around the fire-pit. We seek a caring and sustainable interaction between human nature and Nature, inviting Nature to heal us.
What We Do
Surprise Farm Retreat Center (SFRC) is an educational organization offering workshops, seminars, and discussion groups on the relationships between nature, culture, community, self, and well-being.
With educators from the Center, and in collaboration with others, we seek to provide meaningful and effective service to individuals and society. Programs (activities, workshops and events) provide experiential education with the following attributes:
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The physical surround will provide entrance for philosophical ideas and meaning-making regarding our current existence in place.
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An educational structure will provide service for people of all backgrounds and interests,
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to explore our place in nature, discuss our backgrounds, relationship and ideas; and
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to co-create activities, art, rituals and healing in a community of common values and experiences.
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While offering our workshops, we will keep the idea of sustainable experience design in mind. We strive to co-create sustainable (environmental, social and economic) experiences that have lasting positive impact on individual and social well-being (Sustainable Community Development).
Board of Directors & Officers
Ute Jamrozy, Ph.D.
Co-Founder
Don Eulert, Ph.D.
Co-Founder
Co-Founder of SFRC, Ute Jamrozy holds a Ph.D. in Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management, and has over 20 years of academic experience in Sustainable Tourism and Marketing. In San Diego, she added Integrative and Eco Psychology, and organic farming to her fields of interest. With SFRC, she hopes to implement sustainable experience design-- in retreats and workshops that offer lasting transformations to the individual, and positive impacts for human-environment relationships. Ute brings unbridled passion for the mission of the retreat center to our board and all she does.
For 40 years, Don Eulert served as a Professor at the California School of Professional Psychology, San Diego—where he urged candidates to fit psychology to the history of ideas, and to global and ethical concerns. Founder of the Center for Integrative Psychology which has afforded Native Americans to become mental health professionals; bringing experts in the field of psychology to present to a community of curious folks; and providing community and mentorship to graduate students pursuing their doctoral degrees. His books of poetry include haiku and translations of Romanian poetry. His collection Ritual and Healing won a 2014 San Diego Book Award. Now , as Co-Founder of the Retreat Center, he presents and guides workshops for integration and enactment of Self, with the help of nature.
Leana Bulay
Board Member
Leana Bulay, SFRC Programs Committee, graduated from UC Santa Cruz in Environmental Sciences with an emphasis in Conservation Biology. She boasts two decades with non-profits and governmental agencies in environmental conservation and education; most recently Leana is a leader at San Dieguito River Park and works in trail development and nature interpretation and education. “I grew up in the area, and the Retreat grounds hold a special place in my heart.” She helps establish workshop series, nature preserve, and interpretive materials for SFRC.
Ken Gill
Board Member
Ken Gill, SFRC Marketing Committee, has a diverse background. Music: 52 years as a professional musician: touring, writing, recording, and teaching. Art: Studied art at Northern Arizona University and Mesa College. VP of Clairemont Art Guild for several years. Art in various local galleries. Created a new art form using sustainable plant materials. Business: Thirty years in business, primarily electronics. Go figure.“I see in the SFRC a chance to bring nature, art, music, farming, and personal growth together in a safe, welcoming, beautiful and sustainable place with a group of dedicated and conscious people.”
Katherine Prosser
Board Member
Katherine Prosser, Community Relations and Marketing Committee at SFRC, holds a degree in Psychology from UCSD and currently specializes in its application within marketing and organizational structures. Katherine has developed and overseen operational structures and marketing strategies for psychology-based start-ups, contributing to their scaling and success. Her keen interest in the therapeutic capacity of nature, both spiritually and psychologically, took root in her early years when she was naturally drawn to nature and experienced its inherent peace, adventure, awakening, wonder, and joy. She aims to raise awareness of SFRC and cultivate community that can experience the psychological and spiritual power inherent in connecting with the land and nature.
Heriberto (Beto) Escamilla Morales, Ph.D.
Board Member
Beto Escamilla, SFRC Programs Committee, conducts Clinical Psychology program development, interviewing, and focus groups. “Originally from Los Ebanos, a small ranch near Monterrey, Nuevo Leon. My grandparents and parents were farmers. I would say that by nature I am a dreamer, frequently getting lost in my imagination. But, I have been blessed with great teachers and a wife who has taught me about faith and helped me appreciate intimacy. I believe that our children are forgetting how to dream and how to plant. I see the Retreat Center as an opportunity to share some of my experience and to pass along an appreciation for these natural human abilities.”
Marina Dorian
Board Member
Marina Dorian, PhD, is a SFRC board member. She is a psychologist, associate professor at Naropa University, and a meditation instructor. Marina has been a meditation practitioner in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hahn for almost twenty years and facilitates a sangha for mothers. Her therapy practice focuses on integrating mindfulness into therapy, treatment of mood and anxiety disorders and couple and family therapy. Marina seeks to make mindfulness practice fun and accessible for all people. Her interests include yoga, meditation, dance, travel, hiking, literature and film. Her intention is to help people awaken to a sense of awe at Surprise Farm and experience mindfulness and compassion in their everyday lives.
Greg Shibley
Board Member
Bio coming soon