Hope For Healthy Community

Reflections from Michigan's largest raw vegan retreat event

I just returned home from a wonderful 4 days of joyful community-building in Gaylord, Michigan, at The Vegan Wellness Retreat:

https://www.veganwellnessretreats.com/

We meet again next summer, June 14-18, 2026!

We come together to heal, to love, to inspire, to feel, and to play….
They joy of connection is what is most palpable.
We come to reunite with beloved old friends, and to welcome beautiful new ones.
We come together to embrace each others’ honest, authentic healing journeys.
Some offer teachings, some come to see what it’s all about, or to soak it up — and we all come to learn with each other.
We come to share our love for a simpler, more natural lifestyle.
We come together to uplift us all, and to raise the frequency of humanity.
Together we savor the exquisite, nourishing, colorful, bountiful FRUITS of nature.
We come to open our hearts - together - and to listen more deeply for what is REAL.
We come to delight in the beauty of nature, together.

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The Vegan Wellness Retreat satiated on all these levels, once again. I am always awed by the levels of connection available at these multi-day, fruit-blessed raw vegan festival events. The atmosphere is unique! Compassionate long-timers hold the bar high, and newcomers feel simultaneously met, inspired, and encouraged. ALL are welcome — but no coffee, no

drugs, no alcohol, no psychedelics, no aggression, and no numbing cooked foods. It’s a grand party, hyped with fun yet without the usual stimulants or masks. Our mantras are authenticity, sincerity, love and compassion.

We are on a quest to reconnect with what is real, with what makes us feel most alive. We bright spirits find each other, in a world so often focused on distractions, darkness, dis-ease, and negativity. Together we lift the temporarily fallen, instill new confidence, and nurture brilliant new leaders. We fan the flame within us all, and free our inner light to shine brighter. We return home from our time together feeling the beautiful beat of our one big heart, our shared light illuminating our way forward.

Some special highlights for me this year were the intimate campfires on the beach, inspired conversations about our collective dreams of a retreat and festival-space we can call our own, the wood-fired hot group saunas with refreshing dips in the cool-tubs, the bountiful ripe jackfruit and mamey sapote fruits, the beauty of northern Michigan (close to my home!), and as always, the variety of valuable teachings passionately shared, and the many genuine daily hugs and smiles.

My own talk on Raw Resilience was fun to offer, and there is no other place on earth - but these fruit-centered raw vegan retreats and festivals - where my heart-wisdom is so gladly received and reflected back by such open-minded, open-hearted souls. It warms my heart for the whole year, till we meet again!

O’hana means FAMILY in Hawaiian culture, and our dear friend Atreya wrote this moving song to play at gatherings such as The Vegan Wellness Retreat, and The Woodstock Fruit Festival. It was immediately, joyfully adopted as our memorable theme song, which we each carry home with us, in our hearts and on our tongues, when we must part ways for a while.
Enjoy!
And consider joining us next time :).