Enjoy four days of:  

Meditation & contemplation practices 

Cooking classes 

Open time options:
Socialize, relax, and enjoy the grounds   

Treat yourself to private 
sessions*  

   - Restorative massage 

   - Other exceptional
      body modalities to
      improve skeletal &

      organ well-being

   - Optimize your health  

      with individualized
      macrobiotic  

      consultation or menu
      planning  

    - Nine Star Ki personal
      chart and analysis

    - Energy healing  

Retreat Highlights  

Nine Star Ki:

Michio Kushi introduced the Nine-Star Ki approach to understanding the movement of energy, both in ourselves and in our environment, in his Boston lectures in the seventies.  Originating from the "law of eternal change" and embodying many ancient Asian philosophies, Nine-Star Ki shines a clarifying light on past events and future probabilities.  It is a powerful tool for personal growth.

In this workshop, with Edward Esko, you'll gain:

• Practical information designed to provide an understanding of your own personality and your relationship with others
• Greater knowledge to benefit your health, relationships, finances, and success
• Guidelines for making the most of challenges and opportunities that await you in the coming year

Cooking Classes:

Expand your knowledge of the physical, emotional, and spiritual dynamics that underlie macrobiotic health with two cooking classes designed to engage your senses, stabilize your metabolism, and leave you feeling nurtured and delighted.     

In these two workshops, with Bettina Zumdick, you'll gain: 

• Informative tips and recipes designed to give you a broader understanding of food energetics and cooking styles that can maximize health benefits  
• More satisfying dishes to astound your family and friends, loaded with valuable nutrients, health-boosting enzymes, and the savory and sweet tastes perfect for holiday events       
• Guidelines for counteracting the stress and over-stimulation that can come along with holiday festivities, to help you remain peaceful, grounded and happy   
• Hands-on experience making holiday delights so delicious you'll want to make them again and again to share with family and friends. Experience fun foods for the New Year and gain a greater understanding of how macrobiotic menus can add to  your spiritual and physical well being, leaving you feeling satisfied, healthy, and peaceful.     

 
Meditation and Contemplative Practices:  

A retreat from our regular lives can bring about a new way of looking at ourselves and our world, opening spaces within us where deep and powerful discoveries and changes can occur.  This can bring about " joyousness", positively and profoundly affecting our health in mind, body and spirit, enhancing our relationship to our inner self and our external experience with others. More and more scientific studies are confirming that meditation brings about greater well-being and actually changes the capacity and physicality of your brain!  

In these workshops, shared between Bettina Zumdick, Misha Forrester, and Olaf Fischer you'll have  opportunities to:   

• Explore a variety of meditative practices that include following the breath, moving meditation, chanting, and guided visualization
• Develop moment-to-moment awareness, observing and witnessing your thoughts, feelings and sensations  
• Utilize mindfulness-based strategies that may help dissolve critical, habitual ways of thinking and acting that often judgmentally hijack your bliss
• Slow down your breathing rate, blood pressure, and heart rate to discover how mindfulness can cultivate positive, emotional states in ourselves and others, to become more patient, kind, accepting, and compassionate, thus improving overall mood and health and producing lower stress responses.    

Movement Practices:

Develop optimal, functional movement:

Align your hips and spine, balance with both feet, and connect from your head to your toes using your whole body through Feldenkrais Method Awareness Through Movement®, and Bones for Life®, internationally acclaimed therapeutic systems of health and growth that importantly increase proprioception (the sensory modality in your brain that gives you awareness of your body's internal responses and self-regulates posture and movement).  Based on the principles of physics and biomechanics, an empirical understanding of human physiology and the connection between mind and body, this method provides a modern day, practiced program for the perennial ideal of a healthy mind in a healthy body.  The guided lessons can dramatically improve range-of-motion, support a stronger and more stable skeleton, as well as provide you with a better self-image. 

In these workshops, with Misha Forrester, you will be guided in:

• Slow, gentle, pleasurable movements designed to communicate between muscle, bone, and brain for increased neuroplasticity 
• Building a capacity for greater body wisdom, coordination, ease and grace; better posture; and if you have been experiencing pain or stiffness, reduction in both, by using the whole body and by responding, knowingly, to your own movement cues 
• Developing weight-bearing strategies to build stronger bones, better circulation, and confidence in moving and walking upright -- a great planned program for the New Year! 

To read about the Feldenkrais Method® click HERE and enjoy the articles on the right side; also, view this YouTube demonstration.   

Restore and balance your flow of energy:

Daily, early morning exercises will focus on an array of gentle stretches and meditations to cultivate good health, mental clarity, and spiritual development.  Michio Kushi recommends these routine movements as a method to harmonize the body.  Many of these techniques and postures,  including breath work and self-massage, are part of well-known disciplines such as as shiatsu, acupressure, do-in, and yogic exercises and asanas, all designed to establish and maintain greater chi (life force) development.    

Follow Olaf Fischer and Misha Forrester using a variety of gentle stretches, tapping, and directed, sequential movements to   

• Stimulate circulation, lymph fluid, and strengthen and tone organs and tissues for wellness and increased vitality
• Improve muscle tone for greater strength and stamina  
• Reduce stress and tension for greater sense of calm and inner focus  
• Cleanse your breath for a stronger universal life-force   

New Year's Eve Gourmet Buffet Dinner  

Ring in the New Year with other Kushi Institute guests along with our staff at this celebratory party, which will include music and dancing, snacks, and a midnight toast.    

FULL DAILY SCHEDULE - CLICK HERE

OPTIONS DURING YOUR STAY:  

During breaks in the program schedule enjoy strolling along our scenic country roads. According to the weather, feel free to bring your walking poles, running shoes, cross-country skis, and/or snowshoes.

Private sessions (not included in program tuition) offered during the week include: Nine-Star Ki, Restorative Massage, Shiatsu, Macrobiotic Consultation, Menu Planning, Feldenkrais Functional Integration®, and Energy Healing.     

Retreat Facilitators      

Retreat Topics 

  New Year Cooking Classes 

  Meditation 

Retreat Topics 

  Feldenkrais  Awareness

  Through Movement®

  Bones for Life®

  Contemplative Practice   

Retreat Topics

  Nine Star Ki Analysis