The end of October and beginning of November is a significant time in many calendars: Halloween, Samhain, Diwali, All Soul’s Day, Dia de los Muertos are just some of the occasions that celebrate the liminal space between the end of harvest season and the beginning of winter.

Honor the dark half of the year in this daylong retreat as we go within to rest and reflect on the year. Explore what you have harvested, what needs to be composted, and what you would like to bring into the winter den to sustain you as you incubate the seeds of the year ahead.

Within the warm walls of Shanti and outside into the natural beauty of Deer Park Farm, retreat leaders Jennifer Speiden and Jamie Reygle will share practices designed to sustain the body, heart, and mind through winter’s cold, dark months. These will include:

• Mindful movement
• Guided practices
• A mindful walk
• Contemplative art
• Self-massage
• Yoga Nidra

A delicious, locally sourced lunch is included.

Registrations have closed for this event

Now the leaves have fallen.
The trees have pulled their aliveness
back in from their branches,
down into their fortress trunks
and the dark, subterranean closeness
of their roots.

Every year they let go of
exactly what everyone says
is most beautiful about them
to save their own lives.

The time will come
when you, too, have to drop
all the ways you’ve made yourself worth loving,
and finally learn how
to sit quietly
right in the center
of your own small life.

Only there can you cry the tears
your life depends on.
Only there will you find
the tiny seed
that holds the whole mystery of you
and cradle it
in the warmth of your body
until the spring.

—James A. Pearson