Women's Weekend 5 at Camp Manitowa {St. Louis Vacation Photographer} Firefly Universe Fine Portrait Photography

October 22, 2012 · Vacations

I was so lucky to spend my birthday on a women’s retreat a few weekends ago!  Two friends and I attended the 5th Women’s Weekend retreat at Camp Manitowa, which was held at Rend Lake in Illinois.  Our days were spent on yoga, meditation, dancing, challenging ourselves, and, most importantly, bonding with an amazing group of strong, beautiful, light-filled women.  I hope I have another chance to do this again!

Here’s an image I took on our first evening together.  The beauty of our intimate, spirit-lifting conversation set the mood for the entire weekend.

Who can resist an opportunity to pose in a field of edamame?  Not Kalanit and me!

We got to ride down in a super cool red Jeep convertible!!

I love this shot of Kalanit walking into the campground…

And what an awesome bus!!

We stayed in yurts!!

Some of our yurt buddies… : )

Camp Manitowa is most known for their high ropes course.  I can’t believe I climbed up at all, but especially with my camera!  Holy cow!!!  What an empowering experience!!

Here’s Asa looking awesome!!

And Shawna, the official event photographer…

A sign leading us to the labyrinth maze (spelled incorrectly, but still a nice touch)…

A symbolic mushroom (the reproductive organ of a much larger fungal organism growing beneath the forest floor) grew at the entrance to the maze. Since a mushroom’s life is so delicate, this one may not have even been there the very next day, when we, too, were all gone.

When we arrived at the labyrinth, each of us took a meaningful, silent meditational walk.  Stones with special words had been placed in the middle of the maze by women last year.  This year, many of the women added their own items that they had found on their walk through the labyrinth.

Ahhh…..UNITY…..and a photo bomb!

We all had the opportunity to tie-dye our t-shirts (a first time experience for me)!

One of my favorite parts of the weekend was when I took a kayak out for the first time ever and spent about an hour or so on the lake by myself.  Wow. Pure peace.  These images were taken with my phone since I was too scared to bring my real camera!

Since almost all of the women on the retreat were from St. Louis, I would just love to take classes with some of them right here in town!  I hope one of these days I can find the time to get away and reconnect.

Peace, Love, and Happiness to you all!

Neshama

 

 

2 Comments

  • Kalanit · Posted October 22, 2012 at 8:50 pm · Link · Reply

    Fantastic photographs! Perfect collage! Yay! I smiled through all of them!

    • Neshama Roash · Posted October 23, 2012 at 3:02 am · Link · Reply

      Thank you so much my dear friend Kalanit!!!! I’m so happy we were able to experience this together!

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