Your Rustic Retreats journey
Starting each day with a meditation or mindfulness practice dedicated to a different one of our 5 senses, we do not only get the chance to begin to explore this one sense for an entire day but also to tune in with ourselves each time in a different way, consciously investigating one of our specific sense organs and prepare ourselves for the day to come.
In the morning yoga session we will work on our Yang side; core- strength and - awareness, stamina, in an energetic, mobilizing and flowing yoga practice including postural work, attention to correct alignment and breathing. We end with a calming-down second part and a final relaxation followed by a short closing meditation.
Our evening session will be calmer, more investigative, playful, looking into new physical connections and transitions of poses. It is more directed to our Yin side, making use of the principle of release and giving in to the movement preferences of the body before ending with rejuvenating stretches and lengthening of our muscles.
Following the calmed state of our body with our mind we end our day with either meditation, mindfulness, Yoga Nidra, Autogenic Training or a related practice.
The conjunction of our sessions and workshops is designed to guide our self- inquiry and observation and to encourage investigation into our own practice, physical and mental habits, anatomic understanding of our individual body and the patterns of our mind.
Connecting movement with breath is something you will hear Lara put strong emphasis on as breath has the grounding power to naturally settle us into our bodies allowing us to perceive ourselves in our entity as a living being.
You will enter a concentrated and open working atmosphere where everyone is encouraged to focus on their individual concerns, to listen to the messages of their bodies and to realize that we dedicate each practice to ourselves while following along the same red thread all together, feeling the supporting energy of the group around and with us.
During the course of the retreat you will receive a tool box full of useful and inspiring gadgets to take home and to apply to both your yoga practice and daily life.
During our joined journey at Bagend we are privileged to welcome the influences of the stunning environment and home of Bagend, contributing to our experience with all of its stimulating scents, sounds and the multitude of inspiring details they provide us with every single day anew, especially intensely sensed in this colorful period of the year, the peak of summer.
We will surely become more connected to the width and expansion in and around us.
This journey is about exploring and diving into our sensory experience of our being and surrounding, not only during our yoga and meditation practice.
After the retreat you might feel set back into the explorative and curious mindset of a child, perceiving the world around you in a richer, more colourful, even more multifaceted way than you did before.
You are invited to come and join in at our sensory playground, exploring the richness of our human being.
Sample daily timetable
- 07.30 Pranayama or morning meditation
- 08.00 Morning Yoga practice
- 09:30 Breakfast
- 11:00 Workshop (practical/theoretical) or free time
- 13:00 Lunch
- 15.00 Free time
- 19.00 Evening Yoga practice
- 20.30 Meditation or yoga nidra
- 21.00 Evening meal
Times will vary slightly on each retreat. There is one workshop a day, it may be in the morning or afternoon. There is also the option to visit local markets on Wednesday and Sunday.
Styles of yoga to be taught
We start the day with meditation or mindfulness followed by a Vinyasa Yoga practice. This is Lara's ‘home’ teaching style, which is reflected in a dynamic, activating and energizing movement class. Variation and diversity play a major role for me as Lara believes that a balanced practice with alternate poses and movement principles (such as flow versus resistance, effort versus release, fast versus slow pace, …) applied as a colorful mixture, allowing us to reach a physical and mental state and perception of balance, stability and confidence.
In the evening practice we have a calmer, soothing and investigating Hatha and movement exploration practice, fusing yoga postures with other movement techniques and practices, encouraging us to take short investigative journeys into the anatomic logic and preferences of our bodies, ending with elements of Yin Yoga before closing with meditation, mindfulness or a related practice.
Your workshop program
Each daily program and workshop is based on the exploration of one of our 5 sense organs.
The aim is to become more aware of our sensory perception and how we can mindfully direct our attention to certain sense stimuli to improve our general well-being in our daily life.
Each workshop begins with a short or more extended active exploration of the specific sense organ before turning to a more theoretic discussion of the topic and getting the chance to share our insights if we like to.
Workshop 1 – Smell
We will start with a short individual investigative walk around our beautiful Bagend environment, collecting impressions with our scent organ before gathering back together, exchanging our impressions and considering some interesting facts about odours and our specific responses to them, having a closer look at the way they can influence us, evoke memories, emotions, associations, etc. Are we aware of these effects in our daily life and can we influence our emotional state by making use of this knowledge?
Workshop 2 – Sight
Investigating into our organ of sight we might become aware of probably taking our ability to see for granted. Each day we take in a huge amount of visual information without even consciously ‘registering’ all of it. There are several theories about conscious and unconscious seeing; what do we remember, what do we forget almost immediately? Why? How is seeing connected to our person and system of beliefs? Do we choose what we want to see? Does education and experience play a role for how we ‘see the world’? These are examples of some of the questions among others which we will address.
As a second part we take a little journey into non- verbal communication. By the use of some playful exercises we explore the language of our bodies, gestures and how we use to communicate with our bodies.
Workshop 3 – Taste
Mindful eating
We will use one of our human ‘basic needs’ as well as ‘pleasures’ to take our time to make the guided experience of mindful eating before diving into the topic theoretically and underlining the importance and benefits of a conscious eating behavior.
We will be encouraged to reflect upon our personal eating habits. Does the way we eat depend on our surrounding, mood, situation and emotional state? How can we eat more mindfully?
Workshop 4 – Hearing
After our short daily explorative initiation of this theme, we discuss the use of sound; environmental, human, animal sounds and different music for our Yoga and meditation practices. Then we will consider theories on our acoustic organ and address the influence of our daily environments for our overall well-being, become aware of our personal and emotional responses and preferences and reflect upon our choices of physical surroundings.
Workshop 5 – Touch
In this workshop we take some more time for setting out on a blindfolded exploratory journey guided by a partner to dive into our experience.
We will discover some of the questions of how we use touch; Do we feel attracted to or torn away from a stimulus and why? How do we react to touch? What are our emotional responses? How do we use our body in relation to our environment? In relation to our objective space, in relation to other human beings?
