Retreat Recap: New Year Mini

The New Year greeted us softly at Wild Sanctuary Retreats & St. John’s Lutheran Church as women arrived with open hearts, accepting an invitation to enter the year gently. Collectively, we were committing to mark this threshold of a New Year as sacred, to offer gratitude for all that 2025 held and to begin dreaming with Jesus for 2026, trusting that there would be no pressure of a ‘New Year, new you’.  Instead, we adopted the phrase, ‘New Year, beloved you’!

From the moment participants arrived, they were warmly welcomed by Hildamary (our Wild Sanctuary Retreat mascot)  and guiding verses written lovingly on our chalkboard:  Psalm 107:31 & Ephesians 2:10—simple words that anchored us to thanksgiving and hope. We began by grounding and centering ourselves in God’s loving presence, acknowledging the land beneath us and the ancient, contemplative roots of yoga as a practice of attention, reverence, and care.

Before moving onto our mats, we made space for community building, gentle conversation, shared intention, and the kind of listening that allows strangers to quickly become companions on the journey. There was a felt sense that no one needed to arrive as anything other than who she was in that moment.

Aelea then guided us through a gentle soul-care yoga practice. Participants were invited to reflect prayerfully on the year behind them and to vision with God for the year ahead. Using thoughtfully crafted prompt sheets, we closed our eyes, tuned into the rhythm of our breath, and moved through gentle, nourishing mini-flows with breaks for collecting our thoughts onto our sheets. The practice helped guide attention out of the busy mind and into the wisdom of the body and heart—creating space for clarity, release, and holy imagination.

Following our practice, hot tea and oxymel on ice were shared as women chatted, laughed, and gathered supplies for vision boarding. As the winter light faded, the room shifted from lively conversation into a special kind of creative silence, the meditative quiet that comes with flipping pages, cutting images, and gluing intentions into place. In its own way, this co-creating with Christ became a restorative practice for beginning the year with fresh perspectives and Spirit led intentions.

As darkness grew outside, an incubator of creativity grew within. Each vision board emerged as a unique and beautiful expression of how the Holy Spirit is gently nudging each woman to shine in 2026. There was no comparison, only curiosity and reverence for the sacred work unfolding at each work station.

We closed our time together with a beautiful blessing for the year ahead:  

The Year As A House

Think of the year

as a house:

door flung wide

in welcome,

threshold swept

and waiting,

a graced spaciousness

opening and offering itself

to you.

Let it be blessed

in every room.

Let it be hallowed

in every corner.

Let every nook

be a refuge

and every object

set to holy use.

Let it be here

that safety will rest.

Let it be here

that health will make its home.

Let it be here

that peace will show its face.

Let it be here

that love will find its way.

Here

let the weary come

let the aching come

let the lost come

let the sorrowing come.

Here

let them find their rest

and let them find their soothing

and let them find their place

and let them find their delight.

And may it be

in this house of a year

that the seasons will spin in beauty,

and may it be

in these turning days

that time will spiral with joy.

And may it be

that its rooms will fill

with ordinary grace

and light spill from every window

to welcome the stranger home.

—Jan Richardson from How the Stars Get in Your Bones: A Book of Blessings

May the seeds planted during this New Year’s Mini Retreat continue to be nurtured with grace, courage, and deep attentiveness to God’s loving presence throughout 2026.