Tadasana on the Trail – June 3 – 5, 2022
This June, Shelley and I will be offering a yoga retreat in Bangor, Pa. Most of you may know us as offering retreats for women only. This is our first retreat that is open to everyone! We will be staying at the Kirkridge retreat Center which is located on the Kitattinny Mountians about an hour and a half from Doylestown. It’s beautiful there and very quiet!
We will have our own lodge atop a mountain with spectacular views. From this perspective, removed from the busyness of our own lives we will - for a few days, learn to stop the world. In yoga philosophy this is called “nirodha”, where we learn pause, to find a place of stillness and quiet. We can learn to slow the pace of the thoughts down and observe them with detachment. This pause helps us to see ourselves and our lives more clearly.
Because of its isolation and natural environment Kirkridge is the perfect place to practice pausing.
Besides yoga and meditation, we will get out in nature and go for a hike to a beautiful spot with a great vista where we can sit for an outdoor meditation before heading back to the lodge.
I was up at Kirkridge on the 13th of February, checking out the hiking trail. The weekend I went was the weekend it snowed. I wasn’t sure if I was going to go because of the weather, but my intrepid winter hiking buddy was up for the challenge, so we went.
Maryann and I up on the Appalachian Trail near Kirkridge
It was fabulous! It is so beautiful and peaceful up there. The trail was sweet and not too long. The AT is rocky in PA, so sturdy hiking shoes are necessary if you plan on joining me on the hike. We will not be hiking very far, but you don’t want to twist an ankle!
I’m really excited about this retreat! Our theme is “Back to Simpler Times”. After all we have been through in the past two years, we will take this opportunity to strip things back to their essence.
We will draw inspiration from the Yoga Sutras, which state:
II.46 – “Asana is perfect firmness of body, steadiness of intelligence and benevolence of spirit”
II.47 - “Perfection in an asana is achieved when the effort to perform it becomes effortless and the infinite being within is reached.”
II.48 - “From then on, the practitioner is undisturbed by the dualities.”
During this weekend we will cultivate the firmness of our bodies, the steadiness of our intelligence and the benevolence of our spirits. We will dive into the postures with detail and depth in order to find that balance of effort and effortlessness. During our meditation sessions we will be working towards not being disturbed by the dualities: pleasure/pain, joy/sorrow, good/bad. We will look for that natural pause where the world stops for just a brief amount of time and we feel at peace.
This will be our mission on retreat!
