Maine Women's Retreat Workshop Recreation Yoga Garden Meditation

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ACA Accredited

Sustaining the Renaissance Woman
August 10- 16, 2008

A week designed for you! Focusing on relaxation, meditation, continuing education, stretching and feeding both your mind and body.

This weeklong workshop, with Saturday night option, will include all meals, lodging, classes and recreation.

A perfect Mother's Day gift for the woman you love!

For information on accommodations at Medomak click here

Our location, in the mid-coast region of Maine, offers a host of recreational activities. For more information click here

To view a suggested packing list click here

Elements

Yoga postures and breathing practices help to balance the physical structure and internal energies as well as tone the governing systems of the body such as the glandular, nervous, and cardiovascular systems.
Ayurveda, meaning”knowledge of life” focuses on the uniqueness of each person’s mind/body type. It emphasizes prevention of imbalances that lead to disease, offers natural therapies to treat illnesses, and empowers everyone to take responsibility for their own health and well-being.
Yoga and Ayurveda are sister sciences from India dating back 5000 years. Together they form a holistic approach to health, healing, and longevity. These two systems are explored in the classes and workshops.

We will offer active practice in the morning to loosen stiff bodies, clear stagnation and energize you for the day. The afternoon will contain some restorative qualities, movement to music, and some Ayurvedic discussions, along with postures and breath work.

Gardening will be packed with discussions on organic methods and how to create beautiful and healthy vegetable gardens that are practical and productive. Discussions will range widely and provide real, hands on advice and lessons from our own gardens at the camp as well as from other local gardens we will visit.

Some of the topics we will cover:

How to create rich, productive soil (hint: it does not come out of a bag)

How to maximize the yield in the mixed vegetable and herb garden with intensive planting techniques and succession sowing

Beneficial insects: how to encourage their presence and help them thrive in your garden

How to get a head start on the season and extend the growing days to get the most from your garden

How to find the heirloom treasures of the vegetable world and save their seeds

Proper harvesting and storage techniques for the your vegetables and herbs

We’ll try to answer all of your vegetable and herb garden questions and help you craft successful strategies for growing in your own backyard. During the week we will create from scratch new raised beds for vegetables and small fruits using the “lasagna method”. This no-till technique is easy (no hoes or rototillers to wrestle!) and can be adapted to almost any site resulting in easy to manage gardens with very low incidence of weeds.

Kayak on the quiet waters of Medomak Lake. Medomak is the perfect place to learn the basics of kayaking or polish your existing skills. We’ll discuss and practice how to get in and out of the boat safely and gracefully, learn how to control the boat in wind and chop, and enjoy a relaxing paddle as we explore the shoreline in this beautiful setting. Bring you sense of adventure and fun and all the kayaking questions you’ve ever wanted to ask!

Create works of art landscapes and journals – for the first time in your life or continuing a talent that you already possess

Meditate lakeside, walking a labyrinth, and in the fields and woods.

Enjoy foods that sustain us without weighing us down – with cooking classes & nutrition information (as well as our own chef who will be delighting us with 3 nutritious and flavorful meals a day)

Explore the gardens of the mid-coast – both for their beauty and beneficial herbs

Book Discussions Choose from several books by Maine authors & poets including visits from local authors for readings and lectures.

Local Wine Tours

Join us for a relaxing week designed especially for YOU. Check back soon for more specifics. For more details call us toll free at 866-633-6625.

Our Instructors

Our Yoga instructor, Deborah Keene-Jones is a Maine native who has been teaching dance, exercise and yoga to children and adults statewide for the past 25 years. She has held national fitness leader certifications and has written health columns for local newspapers in Belfast, Me. as well as produced and aired a weekly health segment entitled Body, Mind-Spirit for WERU radio station out of Blue Hill, Me.
Deborah has developed her business grounded in her holistic philosophy of health and healing. She is the owner of the Inside Moves Yoga Studio located on her property in Liberty, Maine where she teaches classes and workshops as well as provides consultations.
Deborah is certified through the Yoga Institute of Houston, Texas and is registered with Yoga Alliance, a national organization setting standards for Yoga Teachers.
Deborah is currently studying Ayurvedic medicine at the Kripalu School of Ayurveda in Lenox, Mass.

Our gardening and kayak instructor, Shelley Johnson, has been a Registered Maine Guide and kayaking instructor since 1991. Active in the instructional community, she has been involved in several sea kayaking videos including What Now? Sea Kayaking Rescue Techniques, Practical Kayaking, Performance Sea Kayaking, and Seamanship for Kayakers and has taught sea kayaking courses throughout the U.S. and Canada.
Over the past fifteen years, Shelley has been active in developing guide and instructor training programs and has worked to develop guidelines for industry standards in sea kayaking. She is a member of Maine Association of Sea Kayak Guides and Instructors and serves on the State of Maine Guide Licensing Board.
Shelley has written articles for Atlantic Coastal Kayaker, Kayak Touring, Adventure Journal and has served as both Sea Kayak Techniques Editor and Sea Kayak Field Editor for Canoe and Kayak Magazine for six years. In 1998, Ragged Mountain Press published Shelley’s Sea Kayaking: A Woman’s Guide. Since that time Shelley has authored Sea kayaker’s Pocket Guide and The Complete Sea Kayaker’s Handbook, winner of a 2001National Outdoor Book Award. She also co-authored Sea Kayaking Guide to Maine with her husband Vaughan Smith
Shelley has been active in water trail development and island conservation, serving as the 1994 Chair of the Maine Island Trail Association Board of Trustees and presently serves on the Maine Island Trail Advisory Committee. Over the years, Shelley and Vaughan have been involved in the design and testing of sea kayaking safety and accessory gear and their company, Powerface, now works with the following manufacturers: MTI Adventurewear, Palm USA, Seattle Sports, Cannon Paddle, Accent Paddle and Paddleboy Designs.
Some of Shelley’s earliest memories are of the rich smell of soil in her Grandfather’s greenhouse and of helping her Dad transplant one of the hundreds of azaleas that dotted the landscape around her childhood home. While she always dabbled in vegetable and container gardening, it was the move to Maine in 1985 that allowed her to begin pursuing her gardening interests in a more expansive way.
After completing the Master Gardener course of study and becoming active in Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA), Shelley’s interest in intensive and organic vegetable gardening blossomed.She now tend her own vegetable gardens at her home, Breatheasy Farm, as well as those of others. She is also a commercial grower for Fedco Trees, a growers’ co-op based in Waterville, Maine.

Our journaling and watercolor instructor, Abbie Read, received a BA in Studio Art and Art History from Oberlin College in 1978, followed later by a M.F.A. in mixed media from the school of art at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor. In between she taught painting, printmaking, and drawing at Concord Academy in Concord, MA. Following the pursuit of yet another degree, this time in landscape design, Abbie and her husband, Bart, relocated to mid-coast Maine where her 10-year-old landscape gardening business, ARTgarden, is thriving. During the winter months Abbie returns to the studio. Visit The Downtown Gallery to see Abbie’s work.