RETREATS
2023-2024 Retreats
Ratna Ling - Sonoma Coast, CA - August 4-6
Feathered Pipe Ranch, Montana - August 12-19
Kripalu, Massachusetts - August 25 - September 1
Yelapa, Mexico - January 27 - February 3, 2024
Yoga for a Happy Life:
Movement, Meditation and Ayurveda
with Baxter & Melina
RATNA LING RETREAT CENTER
Sonoma Coast, California
August 4-6, 2023
As the summer seasons slips into August, join Baxter Bell and Melina Meza for an unforgettable and deeply nourishing yoga retreat. This retreat, led by two experienced instructors, will be a wonderful way to pause and immerse yourself in the practice of yoga, mindfulness, and Ayurveda during the summer (pitta) season.
Melina will share gentle summer Seasonal Vinyasa Yoga classes, introduce Ayurvedic practices for self-care, and teach Yin Yoga to prepare your body and mind for meditation. Baxter will be offering tools for healthy aging, and to help you end your summer feeling grounded, flexible and strong as you head into the fall season.
Our yoga getaway will be perfect way to fire up your practice while simultaneously keeping your inner agni (fire) cool during this hot season. There is no better place to do it than the stunning Ratna Ling Retreat Center! Located just 90 miles north of San Francisco in the redwood forests of the Sonoma County coast, this getaway is ideal for local Bay Area folks as well as those coming from afar.
At Ratna Ling, enjoy gorgeous cottages with your own bedroom, wholesome vegetarian meals, soaring timber frame retreat facilities, and an environment that fosters a deeper appreciation for the boundless potential within each of us. This retreat will inspire you to deepen your practice both on and off the mat.
Feathered Pipe Ranch
Montana
YOGA & AYURVEDA FOR VIBRANT AGING:
Moving Beyond Resiliency to Thrivancy
August 12-19, 2023
Join Baxter and Melina for a rich week of exploration and learning around how the tools of yoga and Ayurveda provide an unparalleled approach to vibrant aging, meeting the unwelcome challenges of life with resilience, and supporting growing deeper as a person with age.
Each day will be a combination of yoga practices, talks on thrivancy, flourishing, resilience, and Ayurveda to meet you where you are at this time. The setting of Feathered Pipe Ranch in the mountains of Montana is the perfect setting to unplug, unwind, replenish and get inspired with two of the most experienced and gifted teachers around.
What folks will get out of our week:
• Learn how to use yoga and Ayurveda to cultivate resiliency for healthy body, mind, and spirit
• Yoga and Ayurveda tools for health and wellness maintenance
• How to use our tools to move beyond resiliency to thrivancy
• Practical ways to use Ayurveda for seasonal transitions and well-being
• Ideas for building your home practice or classes to share with students if you are a teacher
On retreat, your day begins with free time to journal, walk, or soak before our delicious breakfast. After breakfast, Baxter or Melina will lead an asana class followed by an experiential talk on vibrant aging. With Baxter, late afternoon sessions will weave gentle therapeutic practices together with relevant health topics for everyone. Melina will offer classes inspired by Ayurvedic teachings on how to adapt diet, exercise or yoga practice and daily rituals to flourish in the changing seasons and stages of life.
*Invite a friend(s) new to Feathered Pipe and you both save $100!
Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health
Stockbridge, MA
August 25 - September 1, 2023
Join Baxter Bell, MD, coauthor of the book Yoga for Healthy Aging, and Melina Meza, author of the Art of Sequencing book series and Seasonal Health and Wellness, for an enlightening and informative program. With research-informed presentations and adapted yoga practices for maintaining physical, mental, and emotional wellness, Baxter and Melina present the scientific background that explains how and why yoga and Ayurveda works to foster healthy aging.
Understand which techniques to use when, along with new variations of essential yoga poses, yoga sequences, and other practices that will set you up for a lifetime of practice. Through experiential opportunities, Q&A, and more, learn preventative strategies including:
• Beyond basic strength and an update on the four physical skills
• Harvesting wisdom in the vata stage of life
• Mental and emotional flexibility around significant changes with aging
• Sleep and nutrition for healthy aging
• Stress and moving beyond fight, flight, or freeze
• Downsizing, reconnecting, and reimagining for empty nesters
• Moving beyond self-care, and tools for family and community
• Immune boosting yoga
If you’ve loved the Yoga for Healthy Aging courses or book, you will love this NEW program and being part of an ongoing community of yogis. Return home feeling excited about whatever stage of life you find yourself in.
Note The program is designed for anyone interested in incorporating yoga and Ayurveda into their wellness practices for aging.
Join Baxter for his 10th season in the magical town of Yelapa, and his third year hosting this yoga adventure at the lovely retreat center, Pura Vida. Located at the end of the bay, an easy 10 min walk from the pueblo of Yelapa, Pura Vida is a perfect place to cultivate what Costa Ricans call “Pura Vida” or Pure Life.
In yoga, we call the underlying energy of life Prana, and there is lots of it here, including on the open-air yoga deck overlooking the Pacific Ocean that will be our home base for our twice daily yoga sessions, designed to be accessible to students of all levels, including those new to yoga.
Yelapa, reached only by boat, takes people back in time enhancing the feeling of “getting away from it all” and invites participants to remember the simple life. Walking the beach, hiking in and out of the village, crossing the lagoon, walking up river, getting in waterfalls all create a sense of grounding in this other cultural world steeped in nature...
Retreat will fill up!
Contact Baxter with any questions.
