What if we are so busy searching for worth that we miss the sapphire sky and cackling blackbird?
-Naomi Shihab Nye
Hello everyone! I’m so glad you’re here.
Hi! I’m back home after a beautiful weekend away, somewhere between tending to my day to day tasks and reflecting on all that transpired. How are you?
The days after a retreat are always filled with fatigue, gratitude, contemplation, and a little bit of what now? Like any big event, there is so much mental space spent in the preparation and anticipation phase that the actual thing feels slightly out of body, and then suddenly, it’s over.
Still, I had many moments this weekend looking out at the dappled sky through the giant arched windows of the yoga studio, stunned that this is what I get to do with my life.
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I returned home around seven on Sunday night with a paper bag full of garlic scapes, sweet tomatoes, bright pink radishes, and the sweetest ceramic vase I’d purchased at the Stowe Farmer’s Market that morning. I rode home with a couple of students who came on my Portugal retreat and have evolved into friends- they host the best dinner parties and always have snacks on hand.
We slept and gabbed and shared Mcdonald’s fries while talking about everything from childhood trauma to first loves to body hair preferences to potential future retreat locations. By the time I walked into my apartment that evening, I was full from road snacks and the buzziness of our time away, and desperate for a shower. I am not someone who can relax if I haven’t unpacked so I emptied my suitcase, said hello to all my plants, took that magnificent rinse, lit some candles, and made a heaping bowl of pasta.
In retreats of years pasts, I’d have been preoccupied with rushing home to Robin. She always looked so betrayed when I left, and slightly annoyed (and relieved) when I’d finally return. And though I know her energy now travels with me, each time I walk into my apartment after having been away for awhile, I am returning to the life we once had together, her bed in my hallway a freeze-frame of another time, both comforting and startling.
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The retreat was beautiful, literally and figuratively. The lodge is essentially a giant house overlooking the mountains, equipped with thoughtful details like multiple reading nooks, a library, and the most gorgeous window-lined studio that smells of cedar wood ( I don’t actually know what kind of wood it is, but in my brain it is this). The whole house smells like wood, actually. The owners, Heather and Blake, renovated the entire space with natural materials inspired by the surrounding forest, so each morning I’d wake up and inhale deeply, senses pleasantly prickled.
My morning ritual was hotboxing the yoga studio with palo santo before students arrived. I wake up earlier than usual on retreats to have some quiet time before teaching, visualizing how I want the class to feel, slow sipping my coffee. The hope is that practicing yoga already feels expansive, but practicing yoga in a room with a view amplifies that. Near the end of each class, I’d turn off the music so the birds could sing to us in Savasana. There were other sounds, too: wind rippling through the trees, bugs making their bug sounds, rain hitting the earth.
The sky opened our first night there. As we gathered for the initial circle and practice, students went around sharing what brought them there, or something they hoped to take away from the experience. It was raining hard, booms of thunder underscoring the conversation. My arms needled with goosebumps as a student whose mom passed the year prior shared that her sign for her mother was thunder. Later that weekend, another student whose husband passed tin 2023 shared with me that she finally saw a hawk fly across the sky during a morning practice, her sign for him.
Not every retreat needs to be a spiritual experience, but there is an inevitable alchemy that forms when you bring a group of people together in a specific space. It happens each time, albeit always a little differently. The chemistry starts subtly, an invisible thread slowly made more visible by time and connection, initial impressions evolving into deeper understanding, social walls loosening as trust builds. Likely, there will never be that exact group of people together again. I think this fleetingness adds to the potency, though one of the many gifts of retreat leading is the friendships that often ensue long after.
I had many instances throughout our four days together looking around at my 13 students (one of them my sis!), me their only common thread, moved at their ability to coexist with people they hadn’t known just hours before. I imagine parents feel like this often, or anyone who designs meaningful large scale events and has the specific pleasure of being there to watch it all unfold in the moment.
In addition to 90 minute yoga practices, we spent the weekend eating food from the garden, sitting around the campfire making s’mores, sauna-ing, cold plunging, wood-fired hot tubbing, and mostly just vegging out in the serene space. I loved watching people stare at the sky from a rocking chair, or doodle in a coloring book on the deep leather couches. On Friday night, a local sound bath practitioner with fairy energy led us in a gorgeous session, the one class I participated in instead of leading, which was lovely.
And now I am back home, fridge full of fresh groceries, a memory bank filled with new images. I taught my morning classes yesterday but made sure to get a 20-minute chair massage in between, and was able to take class and bake in the sauna later on. I know myself and got my evening classes covered so I could come home and put my feet up after, a much needed night in, my body demanding sleep hours before my usual bed time.
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I am tired and happy, grateful that everything went smoothly after days of lying in my bed at night imagining how the weekend would gel. I’m currently at my local coffee shop with my friend Hallie and her dog pesto, back to our usual grind of me holding Pesto while Hallie gets water inside, and everyone on the sidewalk pausing to ask if I got a new dog. The rhythm of settling back home and being in my neighborhood feels good in the way that leaving somewhere always makes what is normal a little new again.
I don’t have anymore retreats planned yet, but I can assure you I’m thinking about it. The rest of the summer feels like wide open space, relaxed and mostly local minus an upcoming week in August to Cape Cod with my family. I look forward to slow days with friends, cold fruit and meandering walks, the quiet wistfulness that this season and its long, bright nights can conjure in me, and everything that I can’t possibly yet imagine happening because it hasn’t happened yet.
Thank you for letting me share bits of my life with you. I promise to keep talking about the big and small stuff as it comes, and I hope that each of us continue to pause during moments of our lives that feel ripe with presence.
Have a beautiful week, everyone.
Emma
….without further ado, some dreamy retreat content!
opening circle :)
where we ate every meal
the breakfast nook of my dreams
roadtripping to Vermont with my sissor
Gift bags! I went very local this time and worked with an herbalist who made body oil roll-ons for the group, as well as a maple syrup factory for local bottles and popcorn. Each pouch reminds my students of what I always think, and of course, a handwritten letter and palo santo for juju.
favorite room in the house
The lake I jumped in mostly for the plot
and my student Katherine looking like a damn snack in the cold plunge
She’s also an incredible violinist and if you look closely can see her playing through the window here
sauna & bodhi, the resident zen boii
s’mores!
games!
my beautiful crew
Did you think I wouldn’t end with a thirst trap?
a piece of Stowe on my bathroom sink <3
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Thanks for indulging me! See you next Tuesday!
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