Julia Ingersoll Retreats: Soulful Travel, Culture, & Yoga

06/03/2024

One beautiful room remains! Welcome to the Greek Summer Edition of this favorite retreat. The early session sold-out immediately, so this year, by popular request we've opened this high-summer edition to savor the BEST of Greek summer:

This journey is created for the traveler in you.

For explorers who want to slowly immerse in the lesser-known hidden gems and connect with the local rhythm and wild nature that it may enter your heart and enrich your soul.

Exquisite beaches, daily yoga and meditation, genuine local food, culture and connection, marvelous views, hikes, swims and local-style living,
will bathe your being in joy: the essence of Mediterranean summer is nowhere more incredible than off the beaten track in Greece!
- join us June 24-July 1 There is one beautiful room left! All info on website, or message me.

08/01/2024

"Plants and animals don't fight the winter; they don't pretend it's not happening and attempt to carry on living the same lives that they lived in the summer.

They prepare. They adapt.
They perform extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get them through.

Winter is a time of withdrawing from the world, maximizing scant resources, carrying out acts of brutal efficiency and vanishing from sight; but that's where the transformation occurs.

Winter is not the death of the life cycle, but its crucible." - Katherine May

Isn’t this a beautiful and empowering strategy for winter?

As I prepare to travel from “wintering” in the South of France tomorrow, and land in this beautiful snowy view from my momma’s living room, I’m excited for the snow.
Resistance is futile! Let winter do its hidden work. The symphony of the possible in us depends on the crucible of quiet, invisible times.

23/11/2023

Thank you, life, and You, for being here and gracing mine!

Here’s a wonderful piece by writer Anne Lamott. I hope you enjoy:

“Here is my Thanksgiving piece, on why we say Grace:

We didn’t say grace at our house when I was growing up because my parents were atheists. I knew even as a little girl that everyone at every table needed blessings and encouragement, but my family didn’t ask for it. Instead, my parents raised glasses of wine to the chef: Cheers. Dig in. But I had a terrible secret, which was that I believed in God, a divine presence who heard me when I prayed, who stayed close to me in the dark. So at six years old I began to infiltrate religious families like a spy—Mata Hari in plaid sneakers.

One of my best friends was a Catholic girl. Her boisterous family bowed its collective head and said, “Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts. …” I was so hungry for these words; it was like a cool breeze, a polite thank-you note to God, the silky magnetic energy of gratitude. I still love that line.

I believed that if your family said grace, it meant you were a happy family, all evidence to the contrary. But I saw at certain tables that an improvised grace could cause friction or discomfort. My friend Mark reports that at his big southern childhood Thanksgivings, someone always managed to say something that made poor Granny feel half dead. “It would be along the lines of ‘And Lord, we are just glad you have seen fit to keep Mama with us for one more year.’ We would all strain to see Granny giving him the fisheye.”

I noticed some families shortened the pro forma blessing so they could get right to the meal. If there were more males than females, it was a boy- chant, said as one word: “GodisgreatGodisgoodletusthankHimforourfoodAmen.” I also noticed that grace usually wasn’t said if the kids were eating in front of the TV, as if God refused to listen over the sound of it.

And we’ve all been held hostage by grace sayers who use the opportunity to work the room, like the Church Lady. But more often, people simply say thank you—we understand how far short we must fall, how selfish we can be, how self-righteous, what brats. And yet God has given us this marvelous meal…
-continued in comments, read on-

27/06/2023

Plunging again into these waters - has it been 51 days? Scrubbed like a pebble by salt,
pierced by the Greek light, naked to wind, turned to wave,
I don’t know anymore where I end and this luminous sea begins.

It’s morning. I duck beneath the surface into the cool blue room

The noon sun burns motionless at the zenith.

Gliding like a moonfish over the smooth sea floor, I sifted through a memory
suddenly my heart reflected back to me, a single white stone in the depths.

You have turned into my memory of you.

15/05/2023

When you love a city so much because it’s the mosaic of human life itself -
Every age every beauty every mess every joy every sadness every flavor every created thing every broken thing every passion and every pile of dust.

And no pretense.
“The full catastrophe”, like Zorba said,
offering the rest of us the option of freeing ourselves, free like you are, free from the pressure of perfection out of which nothing comes, not even enjoyment.
🇬🇷 #

Thanks for having me back- you’re in my soul.

01/05/2023

Happy 1er Mai! 🇫🇷 Today, in France, we celebrate the arrival of spring by giving bouquets of the traditional "Muguet" or Lily of the Valley to loved ones- and by certainly Not working!

The beautiful little white bells flower is a symbol of happiness, prosperity, and good luck, which the French definitely equate with time-off!

especially to enjoy nature with a picnic in the sunshine ( except it’s raining here in the South of France, so extra relaxing is called for!)

The 1st of May is also the most rigorously-observed public holiday in France: absolutely everything is closed mon Dieu!

It’s Workers’ Day- as opposed to Labor Day- and so people take advantage of the day off to celebrate the beauty of nature and the joys of springtime, and to do what the French masterfully do: appreciate the simple pleasures of life.

I can't offer you a fragrant bouquet of lilies of the valley, but I can share a photo of this charming flower and also the gorgeous red poppies- called Coquelicots in French, that are popping up all over our hills and roadsides.

I hope you bring on a bit of French flair and decide to make joie de vivre your m.o. today!
What’ll it be? How will you celebrate, madame- Croissants in bed? And Monsieur?
Joyeux 1er Mai

21/04/2023

"Each person deserves a day away .

in which no problems are confronted,

no solutions are searched for.”

- Maya Angelou, Thank you.
I could have sat here forever, drinking the colors, mind pleasantly surrendered to the honeyed afternoon silence.

04/04/2023

RECIPE FROM A LOCAL ( an occasional new series of simple things to share from my travels)

One of my favorite ways of experiencing the soul of a place is through its simple food-culture, and everything that surrounds it-

since food is love and earth and creativity;
It’s giving and receiving;
it’s history, tradition and humble art;
it’s hands and heart and spirit all rolled into one.

So, starting with this luscious Orange- Ricotta- Olive Oil Cake - originally given to me by a friend’s grandmother in Salento, Puglia, Italy- I’d love to share with you SIMPLE recipes on occasion, straight from a local.
This one is so moist, delicious, fragrant and is made in one bowl.

3 eggs
1 1/2 c. Whole Milk Ricotta
2/3 c. Olive Oil (best quality you can)
2 tbs. Orange- liqueur or use fresh juice
1 1/2c. Sugar
1 tsp. Sea salt (coarse)
Zest of one orange
2 1/2 tsp. Baking powder
1 1/2 c. Flour

Mix everything except the flour, blending well. Then incorporate the flour with a spatula, until invisible. Batter will be a little lumpy.
Pour in a buttered 9x5 loaf pan or similar.
Bake at 350 F. about 50 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.
Buon appetito!

27/01/2023

FORBIDDEN TIME.
That’s what my young grandfather wrote in German on this album page of photographs in the spring of 1943.

He took these pictures of my lovely young grandmother and himself while they lived in hiding from the N***s with their baby, (my mother) in Lyons, France.

I am alive because they survived. My grandparents lived under false identities and hid behind false walls during raids.

My grandmother told me stories of the terror. But more often she told me stories about ingenious ways they found to have fun even in hiding.

She told me one of their survival techniques was to continue to live with as much joy and beauty as they could scrape from a ray of sun in a window, or a daring, dangerous foray outdoors to the riverside where their baby could touch grass and flowers for a bit while her father played his guitar.

During periods of intense danger when they had to stay in a dark closet, my grandmother invented games for the children with the few turnips they received as rations.

My grandfather was captured. Once, he escaped from a cell where he was detained through a tiny high window. He was one of the ones hoisted up on their backs by other captives who sacrificed themselves to save them.

It’s incredible how ultimately courageous and giving human beings can be.
And incomprehensible is our capacity for evil, forgetting, and apathy.

Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, honoring all those who perished, and reminding us not to go back to sleep.

My beloved grandmother was one of the most fun-loving people I have ever known, and no one had as many laughing fits.

One of the many great things she taught by example, is that fun is a non-trivial reason for living -

and that fun can be had doing almost anything, in almost any circumstance- with a little dash of creativity and laughter.

We have the capacity for both superhuman goodness - and subhuman cruelty and hate.
Remembering how bad human nature can get isn’t about serving negativity - it’s about maintaining the ability to know the difference. So we don’t get lazy and let it happen again to anyone, anywhere, ever.

22/01/2023

GREECE ODYSSEY “The Explorer’s Edition”
21 - 29 May
Amorgos and Athens, Greece

One of my favorite places in the world, hands down and a NEW edition of this beloved trip!

This journey is for the traveler in you who loves to immerse into local ways and discover the hidden gems, lesser-known places, incredible food, slow-travel style savoring with tools to help you take it all in.

Imagine

A simple, all-white summer house, its soul alive with generations of family stories, set right on the beach with the waves, birds, wind and stars as neighbors. 
Crisp white sheets line-dried in the sun, homemade Greek breakfasts on the shady terrace, daily yoga sessions in the olive grove that give you tools to deepen your presence, the scent of salt on your skin, nowhere to be but here, your morning coffee on the beach, songs of cicadas and local musicians – and everywhere the blue, blue, blue, endless crystal-clear blue sea and sky.
Basically can’t go wrong.

Details are up on the site ( link in bio). Love you.

02/01/2023

You filled my heart with incredible people, 2022!

Kind,inspiring, fresh, intelligent, fun, adventurous people who are so much fun to travel with- be with- soar in joyful atmosphere with!
Thanks dear travelers and yoga students: I treasure all you brought to me- you are inestimable! Here’s a spot you can comment-me the first memory that pops in your head- ready? Go!

Thank you each and all for making these discovering local flavors inside and out, by my side:
This is the power of : together we feel more hopeful, more joyful, more connected to life, in short- more alive.

It was tough to select just a few gruppo photos to post here!
Representing-

1.Greece Odyssey
2. Salento ( Puglia)
3. Tuscany
4. Abruzzo/Tuscany (private)
5&6. Bali
7. Greece at Easter ( private)
8. Puglia bike-yoga-culture
9. Greece April Odyssey (private)
10. Puglia ( inc. the Salento)

SAVE THE DATES
My 2023 Trips include:

May 20-21 GREECE (heaven). new local-style Explorer’s edition yoga-authentic culture-swim-hike-island bliss

Sept. 9-16 UMBRIA Italy: yoga-bike-food-culture.

Sept. 29- Oct. 5 PUGLIA Italy: bike-yoga-food-culture

Oct. 24 - Nov 3* BALI yoga-authentic culture- island bliss

Website currently being updated. but you can DM me for early sign up or any questions .

I would love to share an adventure with you this year!

01/01/2023

Feeling so alive just looking at this fun review of my 2022 gruppi! Thank you each and all who traveled with me on the most spectacular adventures and retreats in 2022- the joy lives on forever!
I’m busy updating my site right now with the NEW trips for 2023, but going through photos and finding these is such a delight !

22/12/2022

May this winter solstice
awaken our curiosity for the
untapped potential hidden
in the mystery of our life.

And may we relax into the fertile field of unfilled quiet,
of unscheduled hours,
of as-yet unplowed earth,
to nourish seeds for ideas we haven’t even dreamt yet.

May we let it all fall back for a moment

like a trust-fall, allowing a little space in the composition for the best thing you could not have planned.

11/12/2022

COMPLETING THE CYCLE

Only one moon has passed since this wild and special night in Bali when our little group was ushered- by special invitation into the heart of a sacred festival in an ancient temple far off the beaten path.

All of this rose in my mind the other night here in “la douce” France, as I watched the full moon rise softly over the village while people went about their business and the glowing orb shone silent and alone. 

What a world away was this joyous, raucous explosion of sound and color that accompanies full-moon celebrations in Bali! 

There we were, being led by our gracious Balinese hosts through the magnificent gates of the temple.

It seemed like we walked straight into a kaleidoscopic dream.

With the shimmering, clanging clash of gongs, we were surrounded by outrageous sacred warriors bearing enormous lances, towering offerings composed of fruit and flowers rose dizzyingly on all sides.
Mythical sacred beasts and fairy-like child-dancers performed intricate rhythms for the pleasure of the gods, while Otherworldly tones of gamelan-orchestras filled the night with mesmerizing music. 

We were all dressed in traditional Balinese batiks and lacy kebaya tunics to honor the sacred event, yet we felt strangely comfortable in the total exoticism : As the only foreigners there, we were so warmly received! 

What a thrilling vibration to join in as crowds  of gorgeous people knelt to pray together, full of flowers, grace and incense.

It was a rare experience to witness exquisite dances which can only be seen in a temple (at some unpredictable hour) as they are an offering to the gods and never performed on tourist stages.

I’m deeply grateful to my Balinese friends and colleagues all over the island who so generously share with us their knowledge and ways, allowing us to step behind the tourist-veneer to learn and experience another reality: one based on gratitude, on learning how to give before receiving.  Such as this lavish full-moon night! 

And tonight in the soft glow of French moonlight I’m beaming my gratitude for each of my retreat-participants: thank you for sharing this glorious adventure - we’re  forever connected by the magic!

20/11/2022

19/11/2022

EMPIRE OF DREAMS:
Bali, Mirror of Soul Retreat, day 1:

Alighting on the remote north shore of Bali at our eco-luxe hideaway we were projected straight into the empire of dreams- this most opulent Mystery!
Tell me, what part of this am I not dreaming?

A harmony and power of Grace took over as soon as we arrived for what will be our ten days of deep retreat- yoga and exploring Bali behind the tourist-veneer.

We immediately surrendered to delight with shouts of joy and laughter as we were offered exotic fruits and flower-petal baths, then wrapped in gorgeous batiks before a ceremonial blessing with pure holy water on the volcanic beach.

And in that crystalline moment everyone realized something exquisite and unimaginable to our
frenetic, absent-minded culture: The unseen realm here is experienced with all the vivid richness of reality, and everywhere, this opulent mystery calling up images that stir the spirit to new possibilities- to new openings, to freedom, to discovering ourselves anew in this radiance that is Bali magic unfolding-

05/11/2022

Hmmm

12/10/2022

GENIUS LOCI - (Latin), noun,

1 : the pervading spirit of a place.

2. the intangible quality of a material place, perceived both physically and spiritually.

3. (And UNOFFICIALLY): That piece of you that gets left somewhere you’ve fallen in love with, and that after the journey is over keeps calling you back to figure out why you are not the same as when you left.

That part of you that somehow has been sowed like a seed- surrendered and deliriously lost to this other place- and yet you’re richer and riper than you were before- more full-
yet hollow, like a flute of reed ready to be filled with music.

4. (Also UNOFFICIAL) That depth of experience you lived on your travels- that magical atmosphere uncapturable by any pretty photo or description, where space and time are illusion and only togetherness is real- that you just have to accept-no one back home will really understand.

Genius loci, you were on the loose in Puglia. You took no prisoners!

12/10/2022

GENIUS LOCI - (Latin), noun,

1 : the pervading spirit of a place.

2. the intangible quality of a material place, perceived both physically and spiritually.

3. (And ALSO): That piece of you that gets left somewhere you’ve fallen in love with, and that after the journey is over keeps calling you back to figure out why you are not the same as when you left.

That part of you that somehow has been sowed like a seed- surrendered and deliriously lost to this other place- and yet you’re richer and riper than you were before- more full-
yet hollow, like a flute of reed ready to be filled with music.

4. (Also UNOFFICIAL) That depth of experience you lived on your travels- that magical atmosphere where space and time are illusion and only togetherness is real- that you just have to accept-no one back home will really understand you.

Genius loci, you were on the loose in Puglia. You took no prisoners!

11/10/2022

It’s startling how deep the surface of the is right alongside us always-
if only we dip down into its waters for even a moment.
Why are we so drawn to the presence of ancient trees?

And especially- the presence of ancient stones?

So much so that we undertake long journeys - like we did to to witness them?

I originally came to Puglia many years ago especially because I had heard about the extraordinary trees- several-thousand years old, thriving in their blood-red earth.

(And who’s to say stones aren’t inconceivably slow-moving life-forms themselves?)

The surface of stones hold the scrawled and carved symbols, traces and clues of our human prehistory

which we are always striving to decipher,

in hopes languages from mysterious epochs of human life will help us feel more fully at home here in our disheveled lives.

Yet I don’t think it’s necessary to translate the ciphers into words. Or numbers of years marked.

Our very bones, the element of earth in us, are irresistibly drawn to the ancient because stones and trees conserve a language of their own

which they slowly give out to those who listen.

In a comprehension beyond words, our own bones respond in the memory of eternal cycles.

The beauty of the rise and fall, the Beauty that endures and has no limit.

This is one reason why we seek and extoll ancient walls, caves, and crumbling cathedrals.

Cities of dry stone, ruins, and humble stone cairns placed eons ago to mark the path.
Our path.

Take a breath with a great tree. A pause with old stones, to sense.
To understand and
appreciate that life is just like
nature: it is constantly
changing, yet eternal.

About the challenge of life as a curious ( and often bewildered) traveler through this set of days we’re given.

About the significance of feeling
insignificant, and about people like
us, who value the
"now” over what’s next.

(Story in the captions)

21/06/2022

Summer Solstice. Today we celebrate the Sun. The Light. The Sea. The glory of Nature. And always, the Miracle. I’m Alive!

20/06/2022

ECSTATIC

For me this water, the Greek sea of the Cyclades- is an ecstatic experience.

That is, of rapture, of mystic absorption, an immersion in something which exists before and beyond words or reckoning.

It can be hinted at, but nothing comes close to experiencing it yourself, in person- which means, through your own body.

You cannot help but be transformed by it, transported into another reality.

If you allow it, it will lift you out of your treadmill of thoughts and offer you its otherworldly clarity.

The word ecstatic comes from the Greek ekstasis "entrancement, astonishment, insanity; any displacement or removal from the proper place;

And also- “to drive out of one’s mind.”

Little forays out of one’s mind are just what the doctor ordered, in my opinion.

Watch out, though: cures like this are highly addictive! I would know, as I was first possessed by the deity of this sea at 6 years old, and am now in my 28th consecutive adult summer,

out of my mind for Aegean blue.

Some of the travelers on our recent odyssey retreat in Greece have returned, and are writing me full of wild love for their experience of blue-
…Have you had an ecstatic experience lately?

15/06/2022

Hearts open and eyes shining with all the beauty- and it was only opening night!
What better way to start our long-awaited Greece Odyssey Retreat than around the table at gorgeous Χρυσα Χρυσα in Athens. After a walk through ancient paths and meditation in an olive grove on the Hill of Muses, overlooking the entire city of goddess Athena.
We were hungry for Xrysa’s # exquisitely prepared locavore food- flavored with discovery, and the perfume of personal freedom blowing over our thoughts. Sharing an adventure is so much fun and liberating!

02/06/2022

ONE THING IS SURE
No matter what happens next, you will never regret having meditated.

30/05/2022

My god, you master builder, you have enclosed me in the sea…

21/05/2022

Feel this power in yourself- this is us. We can.
“If the world is to be healed through human efforts, I am convinced it will be by ordinary people, people whose love for this life is even greater than their fear. People who can open to the web of life that called us into being.”

~ Joanna Macy, 93, environmental activist, author, and scholar of Buddhism, general systems theory, and deep ecology. She is the author of twelve books.

19/05/2022

Blue
You have dyed my soul
A heavenly shade so
That I can always find myself
In you

17/05/2022

Do you remember when summer lasted forever and the thought of “next year” was about as relatable as imagining another galaxy?

Time is only ever relative to ourselves- so if you are three years old, a year is a third of your existence.

And so each year becomes a smaller slice of the overall experience, giving this ship-of-life the appearance of accelerating like a mad river.

But since Time is relative only to ourselves, our experience can transform it …

Moments like this one in the ancient silence of a little stone house hovering between sea and sky, belonging to neither, I belong to the infinite.