Focus on your wellness and spend the day immersed in nature on the peaceful grounds of The Morton Arboretum. Attend to your mind and body with a full day of sessions focused on gentle movement, meditation, and reflection.
Research shows that time spent among the trees has clear benefits for our mental, emotional, and physical well-being. Set aside the rigors of your daily routine and take time for yourself with meditation, yoga and mindfulness workshops.
Light morning refreshments and lunch are included.
Registration closes Monday, May 29, 2026. Register early to reserve your spot.
Retreat Sessions
The Power of Intention Setting
Begin the day with a licensed clinical professional counselor to explore ways to slow down and live more intentionally. Intention setting brings meaning and mindfulness to everyday moments and larger elements of life. Find out how to incorporate this practice and live with purpose.
Together, we will set intentions for a fulfilling retreat experience and explore the goals and desires you have brought with you. We’ll create new intentions to enhance your well-being and guide you on your wellness journey. It’s a time to reflect, connect, and set the tone for a meaningful and transformative retreat and for the days to come.
Let Your Writing Land
Energy is meant to move. When it doesn’t, we feel stuck or stagnant. The same is true for our words. When language stops flowing, we lose touch with our voice and the power it holds. This outdoor writing session invites us back into presence so our words can move again.
Through breathwork, focused attention, and a few simple yoga poses, we can create the conditions for what wants to be written to come through. The landscape around us becomes an active partner in the process, offering sensory grounding, spaciousness, and quiet companionship that supports authentic expression.
This is a contemplative, nature-based writing practice that uses gentle movement and embodied awareness to help us reconnect with our creative flow and our relationship with the living world.
Forest Therapy
Experience the healing and wellness-promoting effects of shinrin-yoku, the practice of bathing the senses in the atmosphere of the forest. A certified forest therapy guide will take you through a series of gentle invitations to open the senses, cultivate presence, and invite healing interactions between people and the natural world. To finish, enjoy a closing ceremony with tea made from plants foraged from the forest.
Meditation with Essential Oils
Explore meditative, self-nurturing yoga poses paired with guided breathing techniques and plant-based essential oils to restore and rebalance the mind and body. This class invites you to slow down, deepen your breath, and engage the senses through intentional inhalation, gentle movement, and moments of stillness. Set in the tranquil surroundings of The Morton Arboretum, participants will leave feeling grounded, refreshed, and more connected to themselves and the natural world.
This program meets in person at the Arboretum.
Instructors: Kristy Belton, certified forest therapy guide; Retta Hennessy, certified forest therapy guide; Laura Jaramillo, certified yoga instructor; Jessica Rodriguez, certified forest therapy guide, Reciprocal Forest Bathing; Natalie Schilke, certified yoga instructor
Age: 16 and older
Course number: WELL300
