Pacific Northwest · Old Growth · Est. 2018
You've been carrying
this long enough.
A cedar-walled gathering place where silence is the first medicine offered at the door.
2016 · Portland, Oregon
The founder sat on the floor of her office at 11 p.m. and couldn't remember why she'd gotten up that morning.
Elena Marsh had spent fourteen years as a grief counselor. She had held hundreds of people through their worst seasons. She had never once been held herself. That night on the floor wasn't a breakdown — it was an arrival. The first honest moment in years.
"I needed a place that didn't exist yet. So I built it."
— Elena Marsh, Founder
The first cedar beam goes up.
The first guest arrives.
A hospice nurse from Seattle. She stayed four days and barely spoke.
The first circle is held.
Seven people. Six hours. No agenda.
Sanctuary was built for those
who know how to take care of everyone but themselves.
The Burned-Out Therapist
You've held space for grief, trauma, and crisis for years. Your empathy is a gift you've given until the well ran dry. Sanctuary offers what you give to others — undivided, wordless presence in a place that asks nothing of you.
Many therapists arrive referred by their own supervisors. Most come alone. All leave with more than they expected.
The Grief-Stricken Parent
Loss doesn't follow a schedule. Hospice counselors send families here when formal support ends and the real work of living with absence begins. There is no curriculum for what you're carrying.
We partner with six hospice organizations across the Pacific Northwest. Sliding scale fees ensure cost is never a barrier.
The Leader Who's Run Out of Language
You can solve almost anything. Except this. The exhaustion that doesn't lift after vacation. The numbness that settled in somewhere between the last reorg and the next board meeting. You don't need a strategy retreat.
No agenda, no peer benchmarking, no takeaways deck. Just three days to remember you're a person first.
The present Sanctuary —
each room a different wound.
Every retreat is led by a different healer, photographed in the actual space where it happens. What you see is what you arrive to.
Dr. Renata Solís
Somatic grief therapist, 18 years
Grief Without a Map
For those navigating loss that has no name yet — the loss of a future, a relationship, an identity.
Three days of somatic movement, silent meals, and evening circles in the cedar hall. No expectations. No curriculum. Just enough structure to feel safe enough to let go.
Marcus Ngũgĩ, LCSW
Trauma specialist, hospice chaplain
The Caregiver's Rest
For therapists, nurses, social workers, and anyone who has been professionally required to hold others' pain.
A weekend of deliberate rest. Long walks. Hot baths. Optional silence. One evening circle. Designed with input from occupational burnout researchers.
Elena Marsh
Founder, grief counselor
When Language Fails
For leaders and executives who have reached the limit of problem-solving their way through an interior crisis.
No slides. No frameworks. Four days of supervised solitude broken only by optional shared meals and one circle each evening. The land does most of the work.
Yuki Tanaka & Priya Nair
Family grief specialists
Mothers & Daughters After Loss
For mothers and daughters navigating shared loss — a death, a miscarriage, a family fracture — who need to grieve both separately and together.
A rare dual-healer retreat. Mornings in individual silence, afternoons in paired reflection, evenings in group circle. Limited to six pairs.
All retreats operate on sliding scale payment. No one is turned away for cost.
What people carry out
when they leave lighter.
I arrived as a therapist. I left as a person. I hadn't known the difference in years. Elena doesn't offer healing — she offers the conditions for it. That's harder and rarer.
Dr. Cassandra Whitmore
Psychotherapist, Portland, OR
Self-referred after 11 years in practice
My hospice counselor sent me here six weeks after my son died. I didn't want to go. I couldn't speak for the first two days. By the third morning I was sitting by the creek and I heard myself breathe for the first time in months.
Miriam Okonkwo
Seattle, WA
Referred by Evergreen Hospice Care
I've done executive coaching, meditation retreats, therapy. None of it touched whatever was wrong. Four days at Sanctuary and I understood: I needed to stop performing recovery and actually rest. The forest helped.
James Kowalski
Former CEO, now consultant
Referred by executive coach
Partner Organizations