Yoga Retreat in the Rockies: Rhythms of Nature

June 23rd, 2016 • BY Morgan Tilton

I was surrounded by Colorado shortgrass and bittersweet mountain sagebrush. In a glacier-carved U-shaped valley hemmed by a ridgeline called South Lateral Moraine, our circle of yoga students stretched their arms up toward the big blue. The yoga class of 12 and our teacher, Laura Collins, stood together at the edge of Rocky Mountain National Park. The mature ponderosas were coated in vanilla-scented sap, and the morning sunlight warmed the backs of our shoulders. We moved into tree pose, I gazed ahead and met my drishti—a focal point used for standing postures or meditation—to balance. Across the field and livery stables, past the rolling landscape speckled with knobby granite sculptures, and over the 9- and 10,000-foot high Deer and Eagle Cliff Mountains my eyes met Ypsilon, a 13,520-foot peak in the Mummy Range. This view couldn’t be better, I thought as the calm breeze rustling the prairie and cooled my skin. What an idyllic spot for a four-day yoga retreat.

At the turnover of last summer, I attended the Centennial State’s brand new yoga-and-nature retreat, called Rhythms of Nature. The gathering was held at the YMCA of the Rockies: a campus filled with rustic cabins, multi-level modest lodges, and a plethora of recreational facilities from archery grounds to an indoor swimming, all located on the southwest periphery of Estes Park. Encapsulated by 860-acres of pure Rocky Mountain enchantment I came to understand why yogin (Sanskrit for yoga practitioner; the gender-neutral, plural form) flock annually to the Y’s campus for the multi-week workshops hosted each fall by Yoga Journal Live. The yoga events series, founded by Yoga Journal, has grown in attendance over the past 20 years. Most recently, the attendance was expected to reach about 1,500 yogis.

The creator of Rhythms of Nature, Laura Collins—and founder of Homegrown Yoga and Massage—attended the conference five years ago and knew the site was where she wanted to teach yoga and wellness, nestled in the Rockies.

 

“This is a gorgeous place—the land is such a gift—and having yoga and being in the mountains is synchronous. Yoga is so full of empowering, positive energy. And nature is where you can feel that empowering positive energy. The two working together is nurturing, and we’re creating that opportunity for people here,” Collins told me.

Well-studied and multidimensional, Collins earned her yoga certification  from the Integral Yoga Institute in San Francisco. She was also lay ordained in Soto Zen tradition at Green Gulch Farm Zen Center in Sausalito, became a Licensed Massage Therapist via the Boulder College of Massage Therapy, was raised Catholic, and carries a Master’s of Science in Community Health Education. With such a span of knowledge, she’s developed an arsenal of tools: various historic and modern philosophies to help guide students toward self-understanding, spirituality, and health and wellness.

Enveloped by mountains—not to mention, the top of 14,259-foot Longs Peak, poking up to the south—the daily morning practice was incomparably serene. To start, we did Integral Yoga, a practice founded in 1966 by Sri Swami Satchidanandaji Maharaj, based on the principal that Truth is One, Paths are Many. Meaning, people of all backgrounds and beliefs can realize their common spirit and the universality of their spiritual goals. Alternatively, our afternoon sessions focused on Baptiste Yoga. Founded in the 1940’s by Walt Baptiste, the Hatha Yoga-inspired style incorporates power-movement postures that build body heat while strengthening muscles, developing mental focus, and instilling positive leadership skills.

 

Our group was as eclectic as they come. The first night, we broke the ice by sharing our personal reasons for joining the retreat. I was surprised by the immediate openness and vulnerability of the circle. Each individual’s experience was complicated, rite with emotion, yet somehow, relatable, despite the diversity of our backgrounds and life stages. Of all ages and genders, we had arrived from states across the U.S. including Texas, Arizona and New York.

The yoga retreaters included a couple—an Australian-Italian energy worker and an advertisement writer. Two close friends who were coming into motherhood. A parent processing empty nest syndrome. And another who was healing from divorce. But we were all there in search of methods that could help us improve our life-balance with work, family and self care. We got to know one another through our daily hikes in Rocky Mountain National Park, over meals, and during our nighttime studies of the clear constellations in the unimpeded sky.

As I spoke with the energy worker, she told me about a devastating social issue that she’s worked on with the elderly population in New York City. Often, they don’t have access to aid, physical or financial resources, or a community to help assist them. She knew one woman who spent the entire winter alone, isolated in her apartment. I asked, How do you think a support system could be implemented, and how can we as a community ensure the program’s survival? I thought about the group, here, and how we’d all come together to seek new tools that would help improve our lives back at home. I felt a twinge of anxiety at the thought of failing to take all that I would learn and implementing it in my day-to-day life.

 

Collins’s lessons introduced us to pranayama—which means, breathing—exercises, Zen meditation and the eight limbs of Ashtanga Yoga. We learned to sing as Collins played a classical Indian harmonium and studied mettapractice, interpreted as loving-kindness: a meditation style that’s used to develop compassion and unconditional love for the self and others. You sit, breath in and out, and repeat a phrase to yourself, like, May I be free from distress. Before beginning, you choose whom to dedicate the phrase to—yourself, a friend, an enemy, benefactor or a neutral individual.

We also became familiar with the surrounding landscape’s medicinal plants, from a local outdoor guide and area expert, Tom Dewitz, who led us on a hike.

The final night held a surprise. Disguised on our itinerary as a campfire s’mores farewell, we arrived at the outdoor hearth only to discover instruments for a drum circle. Nancy Bell, a Colorado-based music therapist certified with Life Rhythms Music Therapy, brought an entire trunk of drums and percussion gizmos. Xylophones, chimes, maracas and shakers. Everyone was invited to play with “no experience necessary,” which was ideal. Almost no one had sat in a drum circle before.

Drumming, I learned, is a way to express nonverbal, creative communication. It cognitively helps to improve attention, perception and memory. The act generates an environment that’s energizing, relaxing and meditative. By the end of our session—beneath another perfectly transparent blanket of stars and surrounded by a crackling campfire—the group was noticeably enlivened, yet tranquil. Bright-eyed, glowing and carefree. Despite any initial apprehension that the music would result in cacophony, our individual playing coalesced, quite nicely. It created a coherent, surprisingly rhythmic song. We decided, as a group, that we had discovered a new understanding of synergy. Explicitly recognized, the sentiment was one that, I believe, had been augmenting throughout the entire Rhythms of Nature yoga retreat and was made possible through all-inclusive kindness and support.

 

-MT

 

 

The next Rhythms of Nature Retreat is September 5-8, 2016 at Colorado’s YMCA of the Rockies, outside of Estes Park. To register, contact Laura Collins: 720-218-1953 or laura@homegrownyoga.com.