Together we’ll move through guided meditative walks, a foraging journey through the forest, a cacao ceremony led by an indigenous woman, and gentle teachings that invite you to slow down and listen. Quiet time is woven throughout with optional guided mountain hikes. We’ll gather in a beautiful mountain retreat, share nourishing meals, and return home carrying an abiding connection: to yourself and to the land.

Your leaders:

Laura Collins brings forty years of spiritual leadership to her current work guiding others into a sense of grace and grounding. Blending Celtic Wisdom and Creation Spirituality with her training in somatic healing, trauma, and grief, she brings humor, play, and joy into the process of finding one’s center.   

Bek Jopling, founder of Foraging Home, has a passion for helping others see the natural world with fresh eyes and explore the more-than-human community with wonder and curiosity. Bek has been teaching nature connection, ecology, and wild edible and medicinal plants and fungi for nearly 20 years. She shares her excitement for the natural world with folks of all ages and walks of life. You can read more here.

Jessica Ayala’s teachings are informed by indigenous wisdom traditions and over 25 years studying spiritual truth. She creates spaces for participants to gently expand consciousness and come into greater alignment with their inner wisdom and lived truth. Her work centers on spiritual sovereignty — supporting people in reclaiming their spiritual power, releasing external pressures, and learning how to more fully honor the unique path their soul is here to walk. You can read more here.

For details about pricing and registration, please contact me with your interest.

Laughing Waters Retreat Center in Gerton, NC, 25 minutes outside of Asheville. 

Through guided and walking meditations, silence and journaling, conversation, and ritual, we will be invited to experience our love for creation, as well as the inevitable grief that comes as we acknowledge the crisis our earth and her species are in. Sometimes, this eco-grief can feel overwhelming, so we might numb ourselves to it. Entering into the poetry of lament found in the Psalms and other sacred texts, we will move through our grief by deepening our sense of passion and care. Moving toward a hope drenched in devotion, we will close our time together with worship.

Spend two and a half hours with Laura Collins walking in the Blue Ridge Mountains around Asheville, NC, pausing to observe, listen, meditate, journal, and soak in the loving energy of the rocks, trees, plants and air. The healing properties of the Blue Ridge Mountains, some of the oldest and most bio-diverse mountains on earth, have been appreciated by diverse spiritual communities for hundreds of years. The Eastern Band of Cherokee hold ancient healing rituals in WNC to this day. George Vanderbilt chose this place for the Biltmore Estate after bringing his mother here for the healing air. A wide variety of religious groups – from Christian to Hindu to Buddhist – have chosen these mountains for their retreat centers. Laura has walked these Blue Ridge Mountains her entire life and lived in them full-time for the past 16 years. As much as she loves so many other beautiful places around the world, these mountains are the place where she finds the most consistent healing and connection. Come see why so many people find peace by resting in the lush forests of Western North Carolina.

Participants should be able to walk on moderate trails for up to 3 miles carrying their own water, and be comfortable sitting on the ground (or carrying your own camp chair). Small journals and pens are provided (but you can bring your own, if you prefer). The two hours will include walking, sitting in silence, and using guided meditation prompts to tune into the beauty and power of nature around you.

$65/per person