Awakening Retreat set for Sunday

SPA Sisters will host an Awakening Retreat from 8:45 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday, March 2, at Healing Gardens, 37W249 Dean St., St. Charles. Using nature as a guide, SPA Sisters teaches simple yet powerful ways to connect with your true spirit, empowering expression of your authentic self with all of life's to-dos, so you have more for yourself and others. The retreat reawakens you to the profound life and lessons that nature reveals and enables a focus on you again.

This retreat will be led by Deborah Marqui, a licensed clinical social worker and owner of Healing Gardens at Stone Hill Farm. SPA Sisters has now conducted more than 50 retreats led by Deborah and other trained facilitators. "Nature has the power to heal, teach, renew and sustain the spirit, however, in our lives of multiplicity and diversion going ever faster we often forget our richest resource is as simple and accessible as nature," Marqui said.

Through journaling, poetry, drawing, time in nature and sharing, the retreat offers you a way to reconnect with you, creating a personal practice of contemplation and inspiration that is accessible anytime, anywhere. All are welcome, no experience necessary. The women will be given journals for their journey and begin with a discussion of its purpose. The group will be encouraged to sense and explore the attractions each person has to particular things in nature and become aware of distinct and personal meanings.

There will be a time of teaching, time for solitude in nature for personal reflection and time to connect with other women in a nonjudgmental atmosphere. The cost is $85 for the retreat and scholarships are available if needed. Participants need to bring a sack lunch. Check www.spasisters.org for more info or click on registration to sign up or find other dates.