Join J Miles and Thunder Lane along with special guests Dr. Thomas Stanley and Jenn Mintz for a transformative weekend as we come together to shift our mindset - clearing out the old and welcoming in the new - along with the shifting of seasons. The Autumn Equinox (exact at 8:43am on Sunday, September 22) is an invitation to pause and reflect on all of the activity of the summer and to welcome in an intentionally slower pace for the fall. As the Earth prepares to go dormant for the winter months, we prepare our own minds and bodies to be in alignment with nature.

We will find this alignment through physical movement and breath practices offered by J and Thunder as well as opportunities to spend time with the land. We will integrate these practices through a sound healing experience shared by Jenn as well as time for sharing around the fire and nurturing meals prepared on site with food from the land. We are also thrilled to include the FIRST traditional sweat lodge on this land as part of our time together led by Dr. Stanley. Those who are able to arrive during the day on Friday will have an opportunity to contribute to the final phase of building the lodge and infusing the structure with your prayers. This ceremony will be offered to honor the heat of the summer and to renew our minds and bodies for the work that lies ahead.

• The invitation is to arrive on Friday between 12pm-5pm, if possible (understanding that other life obligations my prohibit this - but don’t let that prohibit you from attending)

• All meals will be provided beginning with dinner on Friday through breakfast on Sunday

• Attendees must bring their own camping gear - facilities include port-a-johns and outdoor shower

• This will be a co-created space, so all participants will collectively support and nourish each other in meal preparation and clean up, as well as finding harmony through our wellness practices

• There will also be ample space and time for rest and self-reflection, and opportunity for hands-on service work during our time together as we bless Baba Thunder for hosting us on his Land

J Miles - a father, Yogi, martial artist, body worker, retired breakdancer, community activist, and the son of a Baptist minister - has been learning and studying eastern arts and philosophy for over two decades. But movement itself, coupled with creativity and exploration of movement through dance, has always been a constant source of curiosity and confidence. J has a unique style of Yoga - influenced by various teachers and writings - but also unmistakably tempered by real life and humor, relying on the importance of breath as a guide and a source of strength. He strives to create for each person a fluid, sustainable and enjoyable practice, that hopefully will prove to be beneficial over a lifetime. And even as this ancient practice continues to evolve, the mantra continues to be “practice is effort toward steadiness of mind”.

Thomas Stanley is a scholar, artist, and writer deeply committed to audio culture in the service of personal growth and social change. Dr. Stanley teaches sound as a freestanding and integrative expressive medium as an associate professor within GMU’s School of Art. The author of The Execution of Sun Ra and co-author of An Oral History of George Clinton and P-Funk. His work attempts to exploit the capacity of sound and music to anchor, frame and energize our subjective experience of macrotemporal texture (history). As a fellow in the Re-Storying the Potomac initiative, Dr. Stanley uses performance and curation to support and catalyze those sonic communities from which noise and music leap forward to frame, reframe, and accelerate our subjective experience of history. Dr. Stanley has written and lectured extensively on emergent musical cultures, contextualizing musical sound and performance as struggles within social space for a fully decolonized temporal subject. As an integral part of this gathering, Dr. Stanley will lead us through a traditional sweat lodge ceremony and impart much of his wisdom around the fire.

Jenn Mintz is a nature-based wellness practitioner who offers body, energy, and earth-work at In True Nature wellness sanctuary and tended lands in Boston, VA. As part of this transformative gathering, she will be offering “Resonance… a Journey of Movement, Stillness, and Sound” - a very special practice to activate and align through the energetic layers and centers of our beings to offer space to reflect and renew the deeper layer of ourselves as we prepare to transition with the seasons.