Susan Kniseley-Foy | E-RYT500/YACEP

Once again, we left Lefkada, and once again, my heart hurt to say farewell.
This was an action-packed retreat. Some of the action was planned, some was not, but it all served its purpose: to help us bask, luxuriate, flow, sit in stillness, grow, learn, and observe ourselves and our samskaras.
Retreats can look glossy and glowy from the outside—and there are certainly lots of those bits—but they’re about so much more than a beautiful vacation. Changing your backdrop and temporarily removing your usual labels and roles can shake up ingrained responses, unstick some neural grooves, and make space for something new.
It helps when the backdrop is so heavenly!
I relished my sunrise walks to the shala to practice and prep before the yogis arrived . And arrive they would, a little more each day, to the gifts of this particular time and place.
Mind blowing views, Mama’s extraordinary meals, her wisdom, her words that you lean in to learn from. Beaches, hikes, boat rides, olive oil, wine, laughter, quietude, sweat, and that ridiculously blue Greek water.
And then, somewhere along the way, you see the shift in the practice. They try new things. They share observations. Their countenance changes. That’s my favorite part. It’s what you hope they carry home with them.
As the week wound down, I kept coming back to the idea of the odyssey. With Ithaca sitting right in front of us, it was hard not to.
The Greek word nostos means “homecoming,” but it’s as much about the journey as the destination—how we navigate what happens along the way and who we are when we finally return home. Perhaps with more awareness and a truer sense of self.

I remain ever so grateful and in deep awe of this transformative place.

Until we next come home to you, Lefkada❤️

Special thank you to everyone for their photos and videos, to @logan.zawacki for creating and collecting a lot of that content, and to @vic.ronga for the unbelievable drone footage!