Gather What Matters

Fall Equinox Balancing Workshop

Autumn is a season for taking stock of what we have, preserving what sustains us, and letting go of what won’t serve us through the winter. We invite you to join your facilitators Kari McLeod (PhD, Professional Certified Coach) and Lainie Reisman (Naturalist/Hiking Guide and Forest Bathing Leader) for a day-long workshop that will help you find both your center and balance as we move into the winter season.

The workshop will be a blend of personal reflection, guided forest bathing and spirituality in nature activities, and dynamic art and group work and integration. This balance of individual and group work, indoors and outdoors, will give you insights about who you are and how you’d like to prepare for the rest and recovery that comes with the six months of autumn and winter. Lainie and Kari anticipate that this workshop will be the first of four quarterly offerings that will revolve around the changing seasons.

Part 1: The Harvest

In the first part of this workshop, you’ll have a chance to reflect on the previous year and identify what you’d like to harvest and preserve to nourish you over the winter, what you’d like to go to seed to save and plant in the spring, and what you’d like to leave fallow to fertilize the soil and seeds of your life next spring.

Part 2: Fall Forest Bathing

We will visit a nearby nature park to undertake a 90minute forest bathing experience. This is not a hike (so all fitness levels are welcome) but an invitation to take your time, slow down, and appreciate the natural world. You will build upon the work in the morning session through prompts that you will contemplate while in movement and observing nature’s bounty and its own preparation for winter.

Part 3: Integration Session - The day will end with an integration based off of the earlier two sessions, including an art/or journaling project, as well as an action-planning session and closing circle.

Inquiring Minds Want to Know

• Doors will open at 9am, workshop will start promptly at 10am.
• Lunch will be provided.
• All participants are welcome to join a post-workshop social/cocktail. No content, just connection. We will head out on foot to a local restaurant/bar.
• On street parking available.
• Please bring: comfortable clothes and shoes, rain gear if showers predicted, journal, and water bottle: Optional: Camera, Journal, Pad to sit on outdoors.
• Weather policy - the event will be held rain or shine and we will adjust Part 2 if needed.
• Maximum participants: 12
• There are dogs in this household.
• Refunds are not permitted, but will be considered based on individual circumstances.