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8 Day Mindful Nourishment: Yoga, Meditation, and Cooking Holiday in Phippsburg, Maine
Santosha on the Kennebec, 150 Captain John Parker Road, Phippsburg, Maine, USA
Joyful Yoga Holiday USA
This listing has one of the 10 most popular offers available in The Americas & Caribbean
Retreat to the gorgeous Maine coastline to find calm spaciousness and soulful nourishment at Santosha on the Kennebec. Whether you are a lover of food or a longtime chef, Santosha welcomes you for rejuvenation and focus.
Meet the instructors
JB Dulac
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Highlights
- 8 days of practice
- 2 yoga classes per day
- Daily guided meditation sessions
- Pranayama and mindful nourishment lessons
- Culinary exercises, foodie visits, and outdoor activities
- 4 tasty daily meals, including early breakfast, brunch, lunch, and dinner
- 7 nights accommodation
- Stunning surroundings
Skill level
- Beginner
- Intermediate
- Advanced
Styles
8 days with instruction in English
The organizer also speaks: French, Spanish
Group size: Maximum of 14 participants
Accommodation
Check-in Time:
17:00
Check-out Time:
11:00
Facilities
- Hot tub / Jacuzzi
- Spa
- Swimming pool (outdoor)
- Air-conditioned rooms
- Dining area
- Environmentally friendly
- Fireplace
- Kitchen
- Smoke-free property
- Special menu request
- Terrace
- Yoga studio
- Conference room
- Ironing / ironing board
- Laundry
- Library
- Parking lot
- Wireless internet
Bunk rooms
This is reminiscent of the joys of sleep-away camp, perfectly cozy and peaceful. Bunks are found in the lodge (connected to the main house) and the freestanding bunkhouse. You can climb into hardwood twin-sized bunks with plush comforters and a piping warm stove in the bunkhouse. The twin-sized trundle beds tucked into the eaves of the lodge overlook the yoga shala.
There are shared washrooms. The rustic decor evokes Maine’s deep mountain woods with wide pine walls and cherry wood finishes. There is central air-conditioning in the lodge. The bunks lend themselves easily to bookings by groups of friends for relaxing getaways, too. Depending on availability, bunk rooms may be shared by persons of various sex or gender orientations. Note: All guests requesting a bed in the Bunkhouse must be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 (including the applicable waiting period following such vaccination).
Private rooms
These rooms have a queen-sized bed or two twin-sized beds as available. Private rooms are spread throughout the main house, the connected lodge, and the freestanding bunkhouse. The curated decor evokes the Maine coastline’s pine greens, marine blues, and marshy golds. Burnished pine walls are in one. There are a gas fireplace and a balcony overlooking the river in another and private access into the yoga shala in yet another.
Rooms in the main house are accessible by elevator. Certain rooms feature en-suite washrooms, others feature detached washrooms, and others share washrooms. There is central air-conditioning in the main house and the lodge. Each room celebrates Maine's pristine natural beauty by the sea. A self-service washer and dryer are available for guests, free of charge. An iron and steamer are available, too. Each washroom is equipped with a hairdryer.
Program
With multiple daily sessions in yoga and movement, breathwork, and meditation, Santosha on the Kennebec offers a mindfulness program to nourish your creativity. With respect to the cooking workshop methodology, Santosha's kitchens are a place for creative experimentation, exchange of ideas, and meditative presence.
Balanced with four local, organic meals per day, plenty of snacks in between, and surrounded by some of the most gorgeous seaside landscape in the country, Santosha on the Kennebec welcomes you into the Maine woods to explore santosha, or 'settled contentment without striving'. Your daily itineraries are diverse and balanced as well as entirely optional in all respects. You should feel absolutely free to craft your own contentment. Lovers of food, whether cooks or not, know the importance of reserving space and time to enjoy the cuisine.
The objective of this retreat is to provide fodder for you to flow creatively, however that comes to you. Maybe you wake for morning practice then get right to the morning's culinary projects. Maybe you read all day, only to surface in time for evening practice. Maybe you take a day off from cooking entirely and engage in Healing Arts sessions, yoga, meditation, and forays into the nearby villages for shopping, hiking, restaurant hopping, or more. The choice is entirely yours: Santosha provides everything you need to build your own creative space.
Every day, the Santosha staff will provide a series of culinary experiments, ranging from hands-on cooking exercises to reading essays on biodynamic farming methodologies or Ayurvedic cooking philosophy.
Asana, pranayama, and meditation
Wake with the sunrise and come together to greet the new day. Experienced practitioners and new yogis alike, Santosha welcomes you into the shala, a warm, cozy space with vaulted post-and-beam ceilings, broad board pine floors, and long views through the pines, down to the swirling Kennebec River below. Your sunrise practice is dedicated to opening each day as a unique opportunity to practice mindfulness, acceptance, and loving-kindness. Santosha will happily customize the daily practices to meet the needs of each day’s participants.
To place mindful emphasis on the spirit of contemplation, Santosha encourages you to practice silence from sunrise through the morning meal, drawing your attention inward, and basking in the peace of shared quiet. Your afternoon practice closes the daylight hours before your evening meal. Meditations in gratitude, heart-opening, and candlelight mark the close of each day. Santosha provides all your mats, blocks, props, bolsters, meditation cushions, straps, blankets, and towels. Begin your practice with tea and treat yourself to something sweet at the juice bar when you finish.
The shala is climate-controlled in all seasons. Most importantly, Santosha provides close attention to guide you through your practice safely, in comfort. Santosha's diverse programming includes various styles of practice, from vigorous Vinyasa flows to gentle Restorative yoga. Seminars take a deep dive into individual poses and meditative journeys. Weather permitting, you even venture outside Santosha for movement on the smooth sands of Popham Beach. Santosha also offers private sessions in yoga, meditation, Qigong, Taichi, and other movement-based meditation.
Mindful nourishment
Maybe you have released a warm, settled sigh while kneading a ball of sourdough. Maybe your eyes glazed over momentarily to the lull of chopping crisp carrots. Or maybe you felt inner ease, watching a gooey pie bubble in the oven. In those moments, you were fully present. If you have experienced any such moments or myriad others like them, you know intuitively that cooking is more than a chore.
The art of cooking is multi-sensory - visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, and communal - triggering both memory and anticipation. Learning to be present through the full culinary process teaches you patience and 'hereness' in the remainder of life, too - to slow down, be present. Join JB every day in Santosha’s two spacious kitchens for the communal, meditative practice of preparing a meal together: bake bread, hand roll pasta, pickle late harvest vegetables, churn butter, and smoke and salt-cure fish. Rather than rushing, slow down and explore, together.
Santosha’s mindful nourishment program reaches beyond kitchens, too. Join foraging classes to learn about local ecosystems. Visit a local oyster farm to learn about sustainable farming practices. Meet in the library for an afternoon documentary screening on rejuvenating ancient agricultural practices. Tour a local craft microbrewery to learn about the challenges and joys of running a small Maine business.
Attend a craft cocktail-making class with one of their wonderful partners. Join nearby growers at their organic farms and markets to discuss sustainable harvest practices. Prepare for your visit to Santosha by reading for the monthly book club and participate in round-table discussions on sustainable eating, the ethics of consumption, and honoring culinary traditions. Bring intentionality to all your cooking, eating, and culinary learning.
Mama Nature
Santosha believes deeply that modern humankind’s estrangement from nature is a leading cause of societal restlessness, malaise, and disconnection from one another. By mindfully choosing to bask in the glow of Mama Nature’s beauty - whether deep in the Maine woods among sweet conifers or toeing the edge of briny, Atlantic surf - you reconnect with your essential roots. You are quick and hasty; nature is slow, deliberate. Invigorate yourself - mind and soul - with Santosha’s various programs, in all seasons, in the great outdoors.
Engage in the meditative Japanese tradition of shinrinyoku, or forest bathing, in the adjacent conservation lands. Bicycle through the rolling, seaside hills of the Midcoast. Day hike along with Maine’s segments of the Appalachian trail. Visit the local Nordic ski centers for a day of touring or snowshoeing through miles and miles of pristine groomed terrain. Spend a day paddling along the Kennebec River’s rocky coastline. Attend local lectures regarding environmental stewardship. Shred the gnar for a day of alpine skiing or snowboarding at Sunday River Resort. Mama Nature welcomes you, wholeheartedly.
Daily schedule
- 06:00 Sunrise meditation
- 07:30 Shared morning meal
- 8:00 Self-guided warmup
- 9:00 Morning asana practice
- 11:00 Shared brunch
- 12:00 Kitchen for daily mindful nourishment program such as learning to bake challah bread from scratch or studying narrative portions of canonical cookbooks
- 14:30 Shared midday meal
- 15:00 Free time outdoors to relax the mind and guided shinrinyoku (forest bathing) in nearby conservation lands (breathe deeply or tuck in for an afternoon of productive writing and reading)
- 17:00 Fireside Fika in the library
- 17:30 'Happier hour' asana, pranayama, and meditation
- 18:30 Satsang philosophy discussion
- 19:30 Shared evening meal
- 20:45 Closing candlelight metta meditation
- 21:00 Time to read, write a bit more, have a sweet treat from the juice bar, or rest for the day, reinvigorated, and ready for another day
Included excursions
Each daily itinerary offers at least one opportunity to leave the retreat space. So many of these offerings are dependent on the weather. A selection of potential activities may include:
- Rushing down to Popham Beach for a Nordic polar plunge to wake up the soul
- Snowshoeing in local conservation lands
- Touring local farmers' markets and makers' craft fairs
- Visiting a local microbrewery for an afternoon
- Visiting nearby antique shops
Instructors
JB Dulac
1 Certificate
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JB Dulac began her career as an attorney in one of the world's largest law firms, but after traveling around the world on sabbatical for two years, she gravitated inexorably toward mindfulness and meditation practices. She lived in a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Nepal and sailed her boat across the Atlantic Ocean from Europe to the Caribbean. She returned to Maine to create Santosha on the Kennebec, where she lives with her faithful sailor dog, Pamplemousse. A longtime yogi, she is certified to teach through the loving ashram at Shambhava Yoga Konalani in Kona, Hawaii.
Location
Set on the Kennebec River, just southeast of Bath (Maine's City of Ships), the sleepy coastal village of Phippsburg is now home to little more than 2,000 residents. Phippsburg is the site of Popham Colony, the first known English settlement in New England and a direct competitor to Jamestown, founded between 1607 and 1608. During this pre-colonial period, the colonists built the Virginia of Sagadahoc, the first ship built on American soil.
A rural fishing community, Phippsburg is also home to Popham Beach State Park, a well-kept Maine secret compared to the crowded beaches of southern Maine. Phippsburg boasts many miles of secluded hiking paths, between the salt marshes and coastal uplands of the Bates-Morse mountain conservation area and the Phippsburg land trust. By water, Phippsburg is known best for Seguin Island and her iconic lighthouse, as well as the Hermit Island campground on the western shore.
Within an hour, you will have access to Bowdoin College, Colby College, and Bates College. Santosha is also within driving distance for a day of skiing at Sunday River or Sugarloaf. For locavores, Maine boasts some of the best eating and drinking in the nation: just ask Bon Appétit magazine, which recently named Portland America’s restaurant city of the year.
North of Portland’s bustling culinary scene, guests will find plenty of gems on the Midcoast, including James Beard semifinalist Cara Stadler’s Tao Yuan (Brunswick); the iconic local lobster haunt, Five Islands Lobster Company (Georgetown); Nikaline Iacono’s edgy and inventive craft cocktail bar, Vessel and Vine (Brunswick); favorite Maine craft breweries, Maine Beer Company (Freeport) and Flight Deck Brewing (Brunswick); and many, many more.
Food
Food and joy are intimately connected. Santosha strives to craft a culinary experience in mindfulness for you: slow down to savor every last bite. Santosha designs its food program to emphasize seasonal, local ingredients obtained from small Maine growers. Meals are meant to be shared, served family-style, around a single, solid, hardwood table.
As an exercise in mindfulness and inspired by the practices of ashrams around the world, each morning meal is silent. Your cuisine fills you and energizes you. Santosha leans heavily toward plant-based cooking to respect its environmental stewardship obligations and remains mindful of the ethics of eating meat, fowl, and fish. That said, Santosha offers meals that both include and exclude animal products to respect your right to choose for yourself.
Santosha's menus reflect the staff's extensive travels across the globe and varied ethnic backgrounds, ranging from Swedish treats to Nepalese home cooking to Israeli comfort food. The menus change daily. Pull up a chair and join the table; Santosha is deeply, deeply glad to share a meal with you.
The following meals are included:
- Breakfast
- Brunch
- Lunch
- Dinner
- Drinks
The following drinks are included:
- Water
- Coffee
- Tea
The following dietary requirement(s) are served and/or catered for:
- Vegetarian
- Lacto-ovo Vegetarian
- Vegan
- Gluten Free
- Organic
- Pescatarian
- Seafood
- Lactose Free
- Other dietary requirements on request
- Ayurvedic
If you have special dietary requirements it's a good idea to communicate it to the organiser when making a reservation
Spa treatments
Healing arts
Your stay at Santosha should be wholly rejuvenating for body, mind, and spirit. They invite you to explore a wide variety of holistic healing arts, at your request, through their collaboration with skilled healers in the local community. Slow down, practice self-care, and breathe deeply with your friends here in Maine. They gladly collaborate with their skilled providers to offer the following healing arts services during your stay at Santosha:
- Swedish massage
- Deep tissue massage
- Hot stone massage
- Aromatherapy massage
- Acupuncture
- Ayurvedic consultation and bodywork
- Chakra balancing and clearing
- Qigong
- Taichi
- Psychic readings and mediumship
- Tarot and palm readings
- Reiki
- Hair and makeup consultations
- Consultation in using cultivated and wild medicinal herbs
Upon confirmation of your stay here, Santosha will curate your individual itinerary and provide pricing details as necessary. All such sessions are not included in your fees and can be booked separately upon coordination with Santosha on the Kennebec.
What's included
- 2 daily practices in yoga, pranayama, and meditation
- Daily Fireside Fika
- Closing candlelight meditation circle nightly
- Mindful nourishment programming daily
- Diverse outdoor activities daily (weather permitted), including snowshoeing, hiking, beach walking, and shinrinyoku (forest bathing)
- Boat rides on Broward Facing Dog (in season)
- 7 nights accommodation
- 3 delicious, organic, locally-sourced meals daily
- Luxury linens, towels, and toiletries
- Pool (in season) and jacuzzi
- Ample parking
- Strong Wi-Fi and telephone service as needed
What's not included
- Healing arts sessions (fees payable to service provider)
- Private yoga and meditation coaching sessions
- Transportation from Brunswick Amtrak station (100 USD, round trip)
- Off-site offerings, including but not limited to craft food and beverage tours, guided foraging expeditions, meals, and related transportation as necessary
- Snacks, beverages, and merchandise for sale on site
- Well-behaved dogs are more than welcome for an additional fee
- Equipment rental, including but not limited to kayaks, snowshoes, skis, paddleboards, etc.
How to get there
Recommended Airports
BOS
Logan International Airport
187 km
Transfer not provided
PWM
Portland International Jetport
44 km
Transfer not provided
PSM
Portsmouth International Airport at Pease
115 km
Transfer not provided
Arrival by airplane
Please book your flight to arrive at Portland International Jetport (PWM), Portsmouth International Airport at Pease (PSM), or Logan International Airport (BOS). From the airports, car rental is the most effective option, although a combination of bus (Greyhound, Concord Coach) and train (Amtrak Downeaster) will bring you to the Amtrak station at Brunswick, Maine, which is 30 minutes from Santosha on the Kennebec.
For a fee of 100 USD round trip (collected separately at the time of arrival), Santosha on the Kennebec is glad to collect you from the Brunswick Amtrak station. The Amtrak Downeaster line makes frequent stops daily between Boston's North Station, New Hampshire, and Maine's Portland, Freeport, and Brunswick.
Cancellation Policy
- A reservation requires a deposit of 14% of the total price.
- The deposit is non-refundable, if the booking is cancelled.
- The rest of the payment should be paid 30 days before arrival.
For this organizer you can guarantee your booking through BookCulinaryVacations.com. All major credit cards supported.
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