The team out at Ishtadev Niwas Yoga Centre and Farm (“Niwas”) is currently preparing for its most popular yoga offering, the Yoga Ecology Retreat, which will run from June 10-13.

This will be the fourth year that Niwas is running the Yoga Ecology Retreat which focuses on the interconnectedness of individuals and nature and utilizes a number of different yoga practices to enable participants to connect, reflect, rejuvenate and go deeper inside themselves. Set in the beautiful landscape of the Purcell Mountains and surrounded by a serene forested environment, Niwas is a Yoga Centre that offers the ideal location for this unique yogic offering that connects individuals with the environment around them.

The Niwas Yoga Ecology Retreat is offered over three nights and three days and focuses each day on six main yogic practices that allow participants to better reflect, listen and challenge themselves to transform both inside and out.

Participants will relish being surrounded by nature while engaging in the practices and will have time for guided self-reflection. Highly nutritious, vegetarian meals are provided to all students on retreat and offer a lovely element of further fulfilling participants’ self-nourishment. Accommodation is also provided in the straw-bale main teaching house loft, in the newly-built “tiny cabin” or in a camper or tent onsite.

Breanna Fast is a previous participant of the Niwas Yoga Ecology Retreat and cannot wait to participate again in one of the next upcoming Yoga Ecology retreats. She speaks fondly of her experience on the retreat: “I approached my first Yoga Ecology retreat with my usual amount of first-day resistance and had my usual swirl of questions when I step into something unfamiliar. By the middle of the first day, I forgot all of my small anxieties and relaxed into the flow and rhythm of the teachings. The small group of retreatants was awesome and allowed for each person’s insights to encourage each other to connect and go deeper within ourselves.”

This retreat also became the first of many for Breanna at Niwas as she further notes: “The Yoga Ecology Retreat really showed me how valuable the act of ‘retreating’ actually is. To unplug and get away daily life allows you to really reconnect with what requires more genuine focus. Retreats at Niwas allow you to immediately experience peace and beauty; nothing compares to the feeling in your soul as you let go for a couple of days and relax into the flow.”

The Yoga Ecology Retreat is facilitated by Niwas’ resident founder and yoga teacher Shivani Howe, who is also an accomplished artist, writer and inspirational speaker. Shivani reveals the inspiration behind the creation of the Yoga Ecology Retreat: “Yoga and Ecology together are elements that essentially inspire connection. I created this retreat as a response to enabling people to step out of their busy lives so that they can re-connect to themselves. The definition of this retreat is what I call a ‘cup-filler,’ or a way to recharge and connect.”

Ishtadev Niwas Yoga Centre and Farm is operated by the Living Yoga Society and has the Mission to create and hold sacred space to experience living yoga for personal transformation and healing and to facilitate working in partnership with nature as conscious co-creators. The team at Niwas has been busy this year – they are generally known locally in Cranbrook and Kimberley from their farmer’s market stand selling wood-fired artisan breads. They have also launched a podcast called the Living Yoga Show wherein an episode was recently dedicated specifically to Yoga Ecology.

Ishtadev Niwas Yoga Centre & Farm is located in Tata Creek north of Kimberley and Cranbrook.

Living Yoga Society

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