Rolling Meadows Retreat

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Rolling Meadows Retreat

Rolling Meadows is a Yoga, Medititation & Breath Work Retreat Center offering silent retreats in Maine and Vermont

Rolling Meadows, a 100 acre yoga retreat center over-looking the hills of coastal Maine, provides a rural, pastoral setting for personal and spiritual renewal supported by the practices of yoga and meditation. Scheduled silent yoga and meditation retreats for up to 10 participants are offered throughout the year. The practices of meditation, classical hatha yoga, yin and restorative yoga, pranayam

a, and self inquiry create the flow of the day with personal time between sessions for enjoying the natural world and walking the extensive trails that weave thru out the property. The form of the retreats provide a supportive environment, allowing you to begin or deepen practices, to shed light on habituated patterns of behavior, to take personal time for digesting life experience and to recognize the ease and peace of our true nature. A container of shared silence is maintained during the retreats, except during the sessions. Silence is restful, being the mirror of your natural state. The silent community creates a supportive environment in which to surrender to the inner silence, allowing the body and mind to quiet while being aware of our conditioned beliefs and the ever available presence of your True Nature. USA Today, Boston .com and Travel & Leisure.com have called Rolling Meadows Retreat one of the top ten places to take a yoga retreat.

05/30/2026

Discovering the Stillness Within

Beneath the endless mental chatter — the worries, the distractions, the noise — yogic philosophy points to something profound: a deep, unchanging stillness at the core of your being.
This isn’t just silence. It’s the source of true peace. The essence of love itself.
Yogic teachings call this the Atman — pure consciousness, untouched by the fluctuations of the mind. A silent witness to all activity.
When we reconnect with this stillness, we don’t just feel calmer — we touch something unshakable. A peace that doesn’t depend on circumstances. A love free from judgment or attachment.
Modern life pulls us outward. But the path home is always inward — through breath, through meditation, through moments of intentional silence.
The stillness is already there. We simply remember how to return.

www.rollingmeadowsretreat.com

05/25/2026

Yoga and Meditation Nurture a Life Rooted in Love

Love is often seen as an emotion that happens to us, something that comes and goes with circumstances. Yet, cultivating a life rooted in love requires more than chance—it demands intention, awareness, and connection. Yoga and meditation offer practical paths to build this foundation. These ancient practices help us open our hearts, calm our minds, and live with greater compassion toward ourselves and others.

Yoga is more than physical exercise. It is a holistic practice that connects body, mind, and spirit. One of its core benefits is opening the heart center, which allows love to flow more freely. It anchors us in the present moment. When we stop dwelling on past hurts or future worries, we can respond to others with genuine care.

Meditation trains the mind to focus and observe without judgment. This mental clarity supports love by reducing reactivity and increasing empathy.

Love is not just a feeling but a way of being. Yoga and meditation provide practical tools to nurture this way of life. By opening the heart, calming the mind, and cultivating compassion, these practices help us live with greater connection and kindness. Whether you are new to yoga and meditation or deepening your practice, embracing these tools can transform your relationships and your experience of love.

www.rollingmeadowsretreat.com

05/20/2026

Yin Yoga
In a world that rewards hustle, yin yoga quietly asks you to do the opposite — to stop, soften, and stay.

Unlike the dynamic, muscle-focused styles most people picture when they think of yoga, yin is a slow, floor-based practice where poses are held for anywhere from two to ten minutes. There’s no flowing sequence, no sweat, and very little movement.

Most yoga styles work the yang tissues of the body — the muscles. Yin targets something deeper: the connective tissue. Fascia, ligaments, tendons, and joint capsules all respond to long, sustained, gentle load. You can’t rush that kind of release. The body needs time to open, and yin yoga gives it that time.

Poses are typically done on the floor and are held with a quality of ease rather than effort. The goal is to find a comfortable challenge and breathe through it.

Regular yin practice improves joint mobility and flexibility in ways that more active styles simply can’t reach. It’s especially beneficial for the hips, pelvis, and lower spine — areas where most people hold chronic tightness.

Long holds combined with slow breathing activate the parasympathetic nervous system and can be deeply calming,

Yin is as much a mindfulness practice as it is a physical one. You learn to observe sensation without reacting, and that skill tends to follow you off the mat.

A yin practice can feel uncomfortable at first, especially if you’re used to constant movement. Stillness has its own challenges. But most people leave feeling lighter, looser, and calm.
www.rollingmeadowsretreat.com

05/15/2026

Advaita Vedanta — the word means “not two.” Beneath all the variety of life — people, objects, thoughts, emotions — there is one underlying reality.
The many forms we see are like waves on the ocean. Different shapes, but not separate from the water itself.
We usually identify with what changes: the body, thoughts, emotions, the roles we play. Advaita teaches that this is not wrong — just incomplete.
A classic image: mistaking a rope for a snake in dim light. The fear is real, but the interpretation is mistaken. When the light comes on, you see clearly. Advaita points to how we misread our own nature in just the same way.
The practice is simple: look directly at your experience and ask what is truly “you.” Thoughts come and go. Emotions rise and fall. Yet something remains aware through all of it.
That steady, knowing presence — that is what you are. Not something to acquire.

www.rollingmeadowsretreat.com

05/13/2026

Living in the Unknown

We often seek to live our lives with certainty- to plan our future and to know the outcomes. We often resist uncertainty.

While there is a place for planning, there are limitations to living from the mind’s need for certainty.

The Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki spoke of “beginner’s mind” — the quality of approaching each moment as if for the first time, to hold knowledge lightly without the clutter of assumption and expectation. A famous quote of his is that “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few.”

When we live with not knowing we live in the present moment, open to many the possibilities life offers.

It requires that we trust there is a wisdom available that is larger and more helpful than the mind can grasp. Having to know is like living in a cage, blocking us from experiencing the many possibles that are available.

Great works of art, music and writing come from the great unknown.

To live in the unknown requires trust and courage. We are conditioned to seek certainty and stay in the known.

I suggest you experiment with letting go of having to know and to be open to the gifts the unknown offers.

www.rollingmeadowsretreat.com

05/10/2026

Yoga Opens the Heart to True Love

The word yoga comes from the Sanskrit root yuj — to yoke, to unite, to join. It’s a practice of dissolving the illusions that keep us separated from love in its deepest form.

Yoga teaches us to inhabit the body honestly. One who has learned to be at home in their own body brings something essential to love: Presence.

The practices of pranayama brings greater attention to the breath. To breathe fully is to feel fully. Many of us have unconsciously learned to breathe shallowly as a way of keeping sensation at a manageable level, of not feeling too much.

True love requires the opposite. It asks us to feel fully. It asks us to be seen in our fear and our longing and our hope, without retreating into performance or control. The breath, practiced with intention over time, slowly unwinds the habit of contraction. We learn that we can feel deeply and not be destroyed by it. We learn that vulnerability is not weakness — it is the very doorway through which love travels.

Love, at its most mature and most alive is about surrender. It’s the willingness to be changed, to let love do what love does rather than insisting it conform to our plans and expectations. The great mystic poets — Hafiz, Rumi, Mirabai — speak of love as a fire, a flood, an undoing. They are not exaggerating. Real love is a transformation.

The yoga that opens us to love is practiced off the mat or cushion - in the quietest moments: pausing before a difficult conversation to take three full breaths. Noticing when we have armored and choosing to soften. Yoga is, at its heart, a love practice. It allows us to let go of the masks and reveals a place of wholeness where we find True Love, our True Self, was here, all along, waiting for us to arrive.

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” — Rumi

# meditation retreat
www.rollingmeadowsretreat.com

05/08/2026

Gratitude

Gratitude has the power to change the way we experience life. It does not erase pain, loss, or uncertainty, but it helps the heart hold both sorrow and beauty at the same time.

In a world where everything is changing and nothing lasts forever, gratitude reminds us that the value of life is not in permanence, but in presence. A walk beside the ocean, a shared conversation, the warmth of sunlight, the memory of someone we love — these simple moments become sacred when we truly receive them.

Gratitude softens the restless mind that is always searching for what is missing. It gently returns us to what is already here: this breath, this moment, this life.

Over time, gratitude becomes more than a practice. It becomes a way of seeing. And through that way of seeing, the heart slowly opens again to the mystery, beauty, and love woven through ordinary life.

www.rollingmeadowsretreat.com

05/07/2026

Embodiment thru Yoga Asana

Embodiment, in the deepest sense, is the experience of fully feeling your body rather than merely living inside it. Many people in modern life spend most of their time “above the neck,” living without the wisdom body awareness offers.
Holding and moving through poses while you focus on feeling sensations is the key.

Breath as an anchor draws attention repeatedly back into the body. The breath is always happening now, in the body, so it becomes a connection to physical sensations.

Asana was originally designed not as fitness but as preparation — making the body a stable, sensitive instrument for deeper practices like pranayama and meditation.

It’s worth noting that asana can also reinforce disembodiment if practiced purely as performance — chasing aesthetic poses, comparing oneself to others, or overriding pain signals. The practice only builds embodiment when attention, not just physical form, is the primary object.
www.rollingmeadowsretreat.com

05/06/2026

Restorative yoga is a quiet, deeply nourishing style of yoga centered on rest, support, and allowing the body to unwind naturally. Instead of stretching deeply or building strength, the emphasis is on resting and letting the nervous system settle.
The body is supported with various props like bolsters, blankets and blocks. Each posture is held for 5 to 10 minutes. The focus is on the natural breath and awareness with no muscular effort.
Restorative yoga works primarily on the nervous system. It gently opens the body without strain and allows you to shift from “fight or flight” into deep rest (parasympathetic state). It reduces stress, anxiety, and fatigue. It can support healing and recovery, especially after illness or emotional strain and can improve sleep and digestion.

05/04/2026

Yoga Nidra — or yogic sleep — is a guided meditation practice rooted in ancient Ta***ic yoga. You lie still, close your eyes, and follow a teacher's voice through a structured relaxation. No poses, no movement, no effort.
The goal is to hover at the threshold between sleeping and waking. In this state, the brain shifts into slower alpha and theta waves associated with deep rest and healing. Research suggests a single 45-minute session can be as restorative as several hours of ordinary sleep — the body rests deeply while the mind stays gently aware.
A session typically guides you through a body scan to release tension, breath awareness to calm the nervous system, and visualization to reach deeper layers of the mind.
A central teaching of yoga nidra is drashta — cultivating the witnessing awareness. You learn to observe thoughts, sensations, and emotions without being pulled into them. Over time, this creates a stable inner vantage point from which clarity arises naturally, because you’re no longer inside the mental chatter.
No prior yoga experience or flexibility needed. It's widely used for stress relief, better sleep, trauma recovery, and creative focus.

Address

151 Cushing Road
Friendship, ME
04547

Telephone

+18886666412

Website

http://www.rollingmeadowsretreat.com/

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