Description
Are you “woke” and wonder what to do next? Do you suspect that you have stuck emotional energy around racism and have a desire to heal, release and balance it? The real work starts now! Are you ready to dive deep? Join author, cultural agility strategist, and spiritual activist Niambi Jaha-Echols to uncover and release your personal stuck points, trauma, and emotional triggers while lovingly addressing them. In this soul-searching vibration-raising retreat, you’ll heal yourself all the way back to your roots.
Nurtured by the serene natural vistas and the supportive guidance of Niambi and her team, you will understand your stories, unconscious biases, implicit associations and transform your mindset – as you are the keeper of your soul. Through exploring ancestral mindsets, questioning narratives, and the use of sound and other soul strengthening modalities, you will release and heal all that keeps you from unity and authentic connection with other cultures – not just what you can see, but what you deeply feel.
In this life-changing retreat, you will:
- Learn how to support yourself and others in healing our ethnic, and racial separations
- Enjoy the bliss of sound therapy for emotional release and balancing
- Explore the gifts and challenges from your ancestors
- Experience the joy of healing cross-cultural disconnections: past, present, and future
- Cultivate conscious awareness to reframe individual and collective narratives
- Recalibrate individual and collective vibrations
- Discover your own ‘Soul Tone’ through Vibro-Acoustic Therapy
- Reconnect cross-culturally from soul-level to skin-tone level
You’ll leave inspired, healed of cross-cultural disconnections, with an evolved sense of who you are, and a deepened connection with all of humanity.
This retreat is appropriate for all.
Presenters

Niambi Jaha-Echols
Niambi Jaha-Echols is an author, inspirational speaker, cultural agility strategist, spiritual activist, and transformation advocate. She is the author of What Color Is Your Soul?: Healing the Illusion of Our Separateness. Through her spiritually grounded perspective, she will help participants to transform and heal to higher levels of unity consciousness by lovingly addressing ancestral challenges, unconscious biases, and divisive mindsets. She helps others gain a foothold in their struggles to understand the ways these mindsets and racism, privilege, and prejudice operate in their minds, hearts, and spirits. Her Woke Work retreat is designed to help people know who they really are, release negative emotions and to recalibrate individual and collective vibrations to higher levels—ultimately back to our universal oneness.
Find out more: niambijaha.com
Rooms & Pricing
All options include daily vegetarian meals from dinner on the night of check-in through lunch on the day of check-out. (Rates below are per person.)
Schedule
Woke Work: Healing the Illusion of our Separateness
October 17th-20th, 2019
Your Program Session Times (subject to change)
Arrival Day 7:30-9:00 pm
Daily 9:30 am-12:30 pm; 2:00-4:00 pm; 4:15-6:00 pm (Sound Therapy)
Departure Day 9:30-11:30 am (Room check-out is 11 am; Luggage can be held at reception)
General Guest Information
We hope you enjoy your stay with us at the Art of Living Retreat Center. While here, we invite you to immerse in the quiet peace of the Blue Ridge Mountains and connect with yourself. Apart from the activities in your program schedule, there are also opportunities to join daily yoga and meditation classes, restorative Ayurvedic spa treatments, guided hiking trails, pottery classes, evening Kirtans, the outdoor labyrinth or the weekly Bonfire. Here are more details for your stay:
Arrival Day
3:00 pm Check-in begins; Rooms are ready by 3:00pm, but if you arrive early we will hold luggage at Reception.
6:00-7:00 pm Dinner
7:00-7:20 pm Guest Orientation Session (Venue: Dining Hall)
Optional Complimentary Activities (Please join only if above mentioned Program schedule permits)
7:30-8:30 am Hatha Yoga Class (Venue: Geeta Hall) During Program Dates only
9:45-10:45 am/4:15-5:15 pm Hatha Yoga Class (Venue: Geeta Hall)
11:00 am-12:00 pm Mind and Meditation Session (Venue: Geeta Hall)
1:30-2:00 pm Yoga Nidra (Venue: Geeta Hall) Saturdays and Sundays only
2:00-3:15 pm Property Tour (Starts at Reception) Saturdays only
1:30-2:30 pm/3:00-4:00 pm Guided Nature Walk (Starts at Reception) Saturdays only
5:30-6:00 pm Guided Meditation Session (Venue: Geeta Hall)
7:30-8:15 pm Meditative Chant/Kirtan (Venue: Geeta Hall)
8:30-10:00 pm Bonfire (Below Veda 2; Weather permitting) Saturdays Only
Mealtimes
7:30-9:30 am Breakfast
12:00-2:00 pm Lunch (included on your departure day)
6:00-7:30 pm Dinner
Ayurveda Spa Appointments
We invite you to also make reservations at our award-winning Shankara Ayurveda Spa before arrival, in order to ensure availability. Please call (828) 264-8382 for details.
Our Clay Studio is open Thu-Sun; Hand-building classes and Throwing classes are available by appt. Clay pieces can be glazed and shipped back as well. Please contact our front desk to make an appointment.
Actual schedules and venues may vary; Please confirm with Front Desk upon check-in
Location
639 Whispering Hills Rd, Boone, North Carolina 28607
Discover deep rest and rejuvenation in our tranquil sanctuary set amidst 380 pristine acres high up in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Boone, North Carolina—the perfect place to begin your journey to wellness.
NOTE Avoid using GPS—it will take you up a private road to a locked gate. Please use the directions provided on this site.
Distance from Nearest Airport
Two hours by car without traffic
FAQs
For room reservations, spa retreats, and Art of Living Retreat Center (AOLRC) signature retreats, we have the following cancellation policy:
- Refunds are available (less a $50 processing fee) up to eight days before your program or stay.
- Nonrefundable credit toward a future AOLRC program or stay (less a $50 processing fee) is available if you give notice between seven and one day(s) before your program or stay. Credit may be applied to any AOLRC program or stay for one year following date of issue.
- No credit or refund is available if you cancel on the arrival day, if you do not show up, or if you leave an event early for any reason. No refund will be available if you attend a program and are dissatisfied with its presentation or content. AOLRC reserves the right to cancel a program at any time. If AOLRC cancels a program, you will receive a full refund. Some programs may have special cancellation policies; see individual workshop descriptions. For all other retreats, please be sure to check the registration page specific to that retreat.
To encourage a healthy environment we ask that guest to not consume alcohol or meat in our public spaces, however, guests may enjoy these items in their rooms.
Our property is always smoke-free.
Yes, we ask that guests with food allergies simply inform us so we can communicate those needs to our chef. Typically, we label potential allergens such as gluten, dairy, and nuts.