Embodied Wisdom Institute LLC

The leaves are letting go. When was the last time you did?

Harvesting Stillness and Vitality
October 29 to 31 at The Welcoming Place, Akron, PA

Three days and two nights to set everything down. Morning Qigong, sound meditation by candlelight, an herbal workshop on sleep and calm, a gentle yoga flow, and a lantern walk at dusk. Every practice is optional. No experience needed. Come as you are.

A little news 🎉
Ramona Ndlovu, LMT, may be joining us to offer massages during the retreat. Picture it: a day of restoration that includes an hour of skilled hands helping your body catch up with the quiet. If that sounds like something you'd love, just mention it when you register and Vanessa will reach out to you personally with the details.

Private rooms are fully booked, and we have a waitlist. If enough people are interested, we can open a second guesthouse with more private rooms. Email [email protected] to join the waitlist.

Shared rooms are still available. Registration closes October 1.

Know someone who needs this as much as you do? Bring them.

Here is the link to save your spot:
www.embodiedwisdominstitute.com/harvesting-retreat

Two weeks. That's how long registration stays open for Harvesting Stillness and Vitality.

Picture this: you pull in Thursday afternoon at The Welcoming Place in Akron, set your bag down, and for three days nobody needs a thing from you. (Not your inbox, not the group chat, not the dishwasher.)

Here's what's waiting for you:

🍁 Morning Qigong with Jason to gently wake up the body

🌿 Midnight Apothecary, an herbal workshop with Rissa Miller

🧘 Autumn Gentle Yoga with Elizabeth Swope

🏮 A lantern walk as the evening settles in

🌙 Candlelight reflection and sound meditations to close out the days

🥣 Vegetarian meals you didn't have to plan, shop for, or cook

🎁 A discovery bag from businesses, including local businesses, plus a raffle every guest is entered in

You don't need any experience, and every practice is optional. Join in when it feels right and rest when it doesn't.

● October 29 to 31, 2026, three days and two nights
● Shared rooms $490 per person

⏳ Registration closes October 1

Private rooms are fully booked. Planning to register for a private room? Email Vanessa at [email protected] to join the waitlist, and we'll reach out if more rooms open.

This is a good one to bring a friend to. Send this post to the person who needs a break as much as you do, and grab a shared room together.

Save your spot:
embodiedwisdominstitute.com/harvesting-retreat

Harvesting Stillness & Vitality | Fall Wellness Retreat in Lancaster, PA — Embodied Wisdom Institute LLC Join our three-day fall retreat at The Welcoming Place in Akron, PA, to slow down, reconnect with your body, and nurture your inner rhythm. Experience somatic practices, sound meditation, gentle movement, and reflective rituals designed for rest, renewal, and mindful presence.

Some rituals are so small you forget they are rituals at all.

Yogi has been blending tea for roughly five decades, drawing on ayurvedic tradition and putting it into something as ordinary as the cup you hold first thing in the morning. They call themselves a well-being company rather than a tea company, and the difference shows up in the parts nobody sees. Regenerative agriculture. The communities who grow it. A tea bag with no plastic in it.

We chose them for a simple reason.

On Saturday morning everyone here drives home to a life that did not pause while they were gone. Much of what happens in this room will be hard to carry into that. But a warm cup held in both hands, three minutes before the day starts, is a practice that survives the drive.

That is the one we wanted in everyone's hands.

Thank you, Yogi, for a gift in every discovery bag.

Harvesting Stillness & Vitality
October 29 to 31 · The Welcoming Place, Akron

Registration closes October 1.

Register here:
www.embodiedwisdominstitute.com/harvesting-retreat

At the end of 2018, Kyndra Bailey was days away from student teaching when she walked away from the program. Weeks before graduating.
She describes it as an early life crisis. She also describes it as the moment she finally listened to her own heart instead of the plan.

Kyn You Believe It opened on March 1, 2019. She draws everything herself, and much of it is printed in her own studio. Bright, funny, tender work about mental health and about being a whole person in a world that keeps asking you to be a tidy one.

Her motto is keep going, keep growing.

We chose her because she built a business on the idea that people need reminding to be gentle with themselves. That is most of what we are doing here too.

Thank you, Kyndra, for several gifts for the raffle. Every person who registers is entered.

Harvesting Stillness & Vitality
October 29 to 31 · The Welcoming Place, Akron

Registration closes October 1.

Register here:
www.embodiedwisdominstitute.com/harvesting-retreat

They have been making the things you sit on, lie on, and lean into for longer than most of us have been practicing.

Halfmoon started in British Columbia in 1989, inspired by a riverside yoga practice in India and a wish to make better props for a growing community. B Yoga followed in Ontario in 2014, with the mat that became the b, mat. In 2018 the two became sisters. In 2023 they became one company. Female founded. A Certified B Corporation.

Their manifesto opens like this: we go slowly, because meaning lives in the pause.
We read that and felt understood.

Everything in these three days is built around the same belief. That the pause is not the empty part of the day. It is where the day actually happens.
They sent something for the raffle, and we will say only this. You can sit on it. Whoever wins is going to be very comfortable for a very long time.

Thank you, b, halfmoon, for a gift in the raffle. Every person who registers is entered.

Harvesting Stillness & Vitality
October 29 to 31 · The Welcoming Place, Akron

Registration closes October 1:
www.embodiedwisdominstitute.com/harvesting-retreat

A friend gave Katie and Eric Roering a candle in 2017. It smelled lovely. It gave them both headaches.

Most people would have stopped burning it. They went looking at what was in it instead, and what they found sent them into their own kitchen, right here in Lancaster County.

Candle making became a Thursday night habit. Beeswax is stubborn, too dense to hold a scent, so they kept adjusting. It took roughly 150 attempts before it burned evenly and still smelled like something. Fontana launched in 2018 out of their basement.

This September they move into a 25,000 square foot facility in Rapho Township. Same two people. Same beeswax, coconut oil, and essential oils. Every ingredient still printed on the label, in an industry that mostly does not.

That is care made visible, and it grew up about twenty minutes from where we will be sitting.
There is candlelight in this retreat. Thursday evening, when we first gather. It matters to us what is in the air while people are softening.

Thank you, Fontana, for a gift in every discovery bag.

Harvesting Stillness & Vitality
October 29 to 31 · The Welcoming Place, Akron

Registration closes October 1:
www.embodiedwisdominstitute.com/harvesting-retreat

There is something so sacred about sharing sound with others.

About gathering in a room and allowing the usual pace of life to soften for a little while.

There is something beautiful about listening together. About the resonance of sound moving through the space, while each person has their own experience within it.

No two people hear the same sound in quite the same way. And yet, for a little while, we are held within the same field of vibration, breath, stillness, and presence.

There is no need to perform.
Nothing to accomplish.
Nothing to get right.

Just an invitation to pause, listen, notice, and be.

I’m always moved by the quiet sense of connection that can emerge when we share these moments together.

Thank you to everyone who joined me for last night's sound immersion at Embodied. It is a privilege to create this space with you.

There are a number of peaceful spots at The Welcoming Place in Akron, PA.

I found mine yesterday.

Sat down, let the noise settle, watched the trees do their thing for a while. No agenda. Just a chair, the green, and enough quiet to hear myself again.

This is the place we're gathering October 29 to 31 for Harvesting Stillness and Vitality. Three days, two nights. Qigong, sound meditation, gentle yoga, herbalism, reflection circles, and a whole lot of unhurried time exactly like this.

Registration closes October 1:
www.embodiedwisdominstitute.com/harvesting-retreat

As the season begins to turn, we’re gently approaching our October retreat.

There are just three weeks until registration closes for Harvesting Stillness & Vitality, our three-day retreat at The Welcoming Place in Akron, PA.

This gathering was created for those who spend so much of their lives caring, helping, leading, and giving, and who may be ready for a little space to simply receive.

We’ll have time for rest, sound, movement, reflection, nourishing food, connection, and unscheduled space to simply be.

If you’ve been quietly wondering whether this retreat might be for you, consider this your gentle reminder.

Registration closes October 1.

We’d love to welcome you.

Register here:
www.embodiedwisdominstitute.com/harvesting-retreat