For ages ~18-35. August 12th-26th, 2026, at Sarana Springs, a 171-acre eco-retreat near Chatsworth, Ontario
The Yana Retreat is for anyone aged ~18-35 who wants to build a deeper connection with themselves, others, and the earth.
Join us for a weekend-long deep dive where together we’ll:
Learn mindfulness and meditation skills
Navigate emotions with compassion
Connect and listen with (and to) nature
Reflect inwardly on patterns, skills, and challenges
Nourish ourselves with locally sourced food
Explore the ways we want to grow in life
This is more than a mindfulness retreat.
Cost:
Sliding scale from $649-849 CAD
plus use code ‘EARLYBIRD’ for $100 off for a limited time!
This includes all meals and your camping fee. For everything else, see the ‘What To Expect’ section below.
You can pay directly through the application form via PayPal, send an e-transfer, or write a cheque.
This reduced fee has been made possible through donations from the Lang Family Foundation.
Payment Plans:
Payment plans can be arranged bi-weekly, monthly, or bi-monthly from the time of your registration until August 2026 or an agreed-upon date. When filling out your registration, please indicate if you need a payment plan. Maxine will then contact you to help set up a schedule that works for you.
A minimum deposit of $100 is required.
Financial Support:
If you want to attend, we will find a way to get you here. If financial assistance through a bursary would enable your participation and provide significant relief, please indicate this on your registration form. Upon receiving your request, we will contact you to discuss the next steps in facilitating your attendance. We have funding available to offer partial bursaries.
Photos by Naty Howard.
What is the Yana Retreat?
The Yana Retreat is founded on the principles of mindfulness, compassion, and awareness of food and nature. You will learn mindfulness practices that help you meet inner and outer challenges with greater acceptance and grounded intention. The retreat is supported by a network of facilitators, mentors, volunteers, and past participants who will encourage and guide you.
Through mindful listening and relational skill-building, you'll explore the impact of your family of origin and cultural experience. You'll connect with your relationship to food and the ecological crisis, and learn ways to address coping patterns that may no longer serve you, allowing you to expand into your potential.
This experiential retreat helps you understand the roots of your patterns and ignite positive change. The Yana Retreat offers a rare and essential opportunity to develop compassion for your limitations and conditioning while nurturing your strengths, supported by mentors, community, and the natural world.
The Details:
Dates:
5 days, 4 nights
Wednesday, August 12th to Sunday, August 16th, 2026
Arrival Time:
Wednesday, August 12th, between 2 pm and 4 pm to settle into your campsite. Our program begins at 5:00 pm EST.
Location:
We are located at Sarana Springs near Chatsworth, Ontario. Approximately a 2.5-hour drive North of Toronto, on a 171-acre nature sanctuary.
What To Expect:
All meals! Prepared and served on-site with local ingredients. (we cook 1 of our meals together!)
Four nights of camping in the pine forest that we call 'The Nest'
A post-retreat Zoom call to help you re-integrate into the world.
Access to our Yana Community groups with all past participants and faculty
Ongoing invites to free meetups, classes, and other events with the Yana community
Payment Options:
Full payments or deposits can be made directly through the registration form using PayPal, by e-transfer, or by cheque if you’re somehow more old-school. Payment plans are welcome. Our registration form provides complete details.
The Yana Retreat is offered at a reduced cost thanks to the generous support of our donors, the Lang Family Foundation.
Financial Assistance:
If your financial circumstances make it difficult to attend, and a scholarship would make this possible for you, please fill out an application here, or message our Yana lead, Maxine, to explore your options at maxine@saranainstitute.org.
Our Retreat Framework
The Yana Retreat is guided by an elemental framework. The elements offer a universal map for inter‑relating with life, which is found across Indigenous and land‑based cultures worldwide, and they also reflect distinct psychological, emotional, and somatic processes we move through as humans.
Yana is not a mindfulness retreat only. Mindfulness, self‑compassion, relationship to food, and nature connection form the foundation that allows for safety, presence, and choice. From that ground, deeper internal shifts emerge organically.
Day 1. Space | Orientation + Intention
Arrival → We set up camp, orient to the program, and light our first fire
Arrival is a threshold moment—leaving one life and stepping into another. We take time to attune to the land and one another. Together we establish shared agreements and intentions for the days ahead.
Day 2. Earth | Grounding + Ancestral Patterning
A day of understanding ancestral imprints and transforming patterns.
Earth invites us into contact with what has shaped us—our histories, our bodies, and the inherited patterns we carry. Through guided mindfulness and embodied inquiry, we explore how ancestral, familial, and early‑life experiences live on in our nervous systems and relational patterns.
Earth day is about rooting into reality, building trust in the process, and establishing a stable inner ground from which change can occur.
Day 3. Fire | Truth, Capacity & Transformation
A day of truth‑telling, emotional resiliency, and conscious activation. Bring on the heat!
Fire is the element of transformation. This day focuses on meeting truth, internally and collectively.
The emphasis is on capacity: learning how to stay present with strong emotion, desires for change, grief, or clarity without collapsing or overriding ourselves. Fire teaches discernment—what to feed, what to tend, and what to let burn away.
The day culminates in a shared feast prepared together with fresh ingredients from the permaculture garden on site.
Day 4. Water | Self‑Compassion, Forgiveness & Integration
A day devoted to self-compassion and spacious reflection in nature.
Water brings us into the realm of feeling, forgiveness, and restoration. Through guided self‑compassion practices, we explore how to meet ourselves with kindness, especially in the places shaped by shame, loss, or unmet needs.
Inner Quest and Light Fasting: Participants spend time at their personal Sit Spot, listening for what is emerging now that the inner terrain has shifted. Journaling, contemplation, and guided prompts support clarity around needs, boundaries, and direction at this season of life.
Those who feel called may participate in a partial or full overnight Inner Quest in nature and light fasting. This solo time is optional and fully supported, offering a container for deep listening, prayer, or intention‑setting.
Day 5. Air | Integration, Community & Closing
Closing council and final meal together
Air symbolizes continuity, new beginnings and community. In our closing council, we reflect together on what has shifted, what is still unfolding, and how to carry this work home into daily life.
Post‑Retreat Integration
An additional group integration call will take place one month after the retreat via Zoom. This call supports reflection, accountability, and the ongoing embodiment of insights gained during Yana.
Is This Retreat For You?
The Yana Retreat is designed for those who feel a genuine call toward embodied inner work.
This retreat may be a good fit for you if:
You are open to slowing down and engaging in a process that unfolds over time, rather than seeking quick fixes or peak experiences.
You are willing to meet your inner world with curiosity, honesty, and self-responsibility.
You value mindfulness and self-compassion as tools for awareness
You are interested in exploring how ancestral, relational, and nervous system patterns shape your life today.
You feel nourished by nature and want to spend more time there
You are able to tend to your basic physical and emotional needs in a group setting, while also asking for support when needed.
This retreat may not be the right fit if:
You are looking for a purely relaxing holiday or a retreat focused solely on rest and wellness.
You are looking for just a mindfulness retreat without the experiential processes.
You are seeking emotional catharsis without an emphasis on integration, pacing, and regulation.
You expect facilitators to “fix,” heal, or transform you without your active participation.
You are currently in an acute crisis or require one-on-one therapeutic support beyond what a group retreat can ethically offer.
We are committed to creating a space that is attuned, respectful, and spacious. Honest self-assessment is an essential part of this care.
Frequently Asked Questions
Feel free to reach out to Maxine if you have more questions.
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Yana is Sarana Institute's young adult-focused program serving those aged ~18-35. It stands for 'Young Adult Nature Awareness', and yāna is also a Buddhist term meaning 'vehicle'. Our goal is to provide a “vehicle” to ride the waves of life with these skills: mindfulness, compassion, nature connection, and food awareness. The Yana program offers online mindfulness and compassion courses, workshops, resources, our Yana Retreat in August.
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With parental consent, we have accepted age 17. This retreat is designed for young adults who want to harness the powerful time of their 20s and early 30s in creating life long changes. If you're over the age of 35 by a couple years we are happy to consider your application.
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Yes! Please contact Maxine to ask questions about this or indicate on your registration form that you would appreciate camping equipment. We always do our best to coordinate needs with the greater community. Maxine@saranainstitute.org
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Yes. A $100 minimum deposit is required with your registration. Fill out your registration here and indicate that you want to set up a payment plan. Maxine will be in touch with next steps. We also have a bursary fund available if more financial aid would make this retreat possible for you. Please indicate this need in your registration along with what you think you can contribute, and we'll be in touch shortly to set up next steps.
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Click here to view all of Sarana Institute’s cancellation policies.
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We do not arrange long-distance transportation for participants, but we will do everything we can to support carpooling. Every year, we have participants who carpool with each other! The registration form has an option to indicate if you can provide a ride from the GTA or if you would appreciate one. Though we do our best to help coordinate rideshares, getting to and from the retreat is your responsibility.
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Absolutely. We work creatively with special menus to provide allergy-friendly meals. Our menu is not strictly vegan or vegetarian but we provide many options for plant-powered proteins and gluten-free. We also utilize the permaculture garden on site.
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We encourage you to take a digital detox during the retreat. However, we won't restrict your need to contact someone. There can be limited cell reception on the land depending on your service provider.
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After registration, we will send you a list of what is needed along with a reminder in our official welcome letter in July. Long answer short: whatever you personally need to be camping for 5 nights knowing that all your meals will be taken care of.
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Yes! There are bugs. But in August there are fewer bugs than in July. The best remedy is layered clothing, bug spray, and patience.
Meet the Yana Retreat Faculty
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![An older man with gray curly hair, beard, and glasses smiling outdoors, wearing a dark shirt over a white t-shirt, with trees and greenery in the background.]()
Andrew Blake
Sarana Institute Co Founder, Lead Faculty
Andrew brings his rich background, knowledge, and experience into teaching the inner work of our retreat. His sessions have a foundation in his work as a Psychotherapist, Buddhist Chaplain and experienced Mindfulness Practitioner and Educator.Andrew also pulls from his background of Indigenous teachings, specifically his time spent studying with Ven. Dhyani Ywahoo.
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![An elderly woman with short white hair and glasses sitting on a wooden bench in a garden, smiling, surrounded by greenery and flowers.]()
Angie Di Iorio Blake
Sarana Institute Co-Founder, Yana Program Founder, Faculty
Angie's our founder of Yana. Her inspiration for developing a Youth Mindfulness and Nature Awareness program grows from her passion for gardening, years of living off the grid and her concern for the future generations. Inspired by years of Buddhist study and practice, training and professional work in the fields of awareness through movement, and engaging Systems approaches and Permaculture, she is passionate about building an inter-generational community. Her vision is to support youth and adults to connect more deeply through mindfulness and nature awareness practices to their inner self and to our interconnectedness with the earth and natural world. In addition to her guiding role at the Institute, Angie is director of Sarana Springs Refuge and Sanctuary near Owen Sound, ON. -
![A woman with dark hair smiling, seated indoors with a cozy, warmly lit, eclectic room in the background, decorated with lamps, plants, and various objects.]()
Maxine Iharosy
Yana Faculty
As our Program Director, Maxine is with you every step of the way. She brings her curiosity, her background of nervous system education, facilitation, coaching, and love of the natural world into her role as a faculty member and mentor. Maxine has been studying with Sarana Institute and is a dedicated student to the teachings of mindfulness and compassion, and how we relate to our inner and outer landscapes. -
![Woman sitting cross-legged outdoors in a garden, smiling, surrounded by green plants and flowers.]()
Naty Howard
Yana Faculty
Naty brings her background as an intuitive healer and spiritual mentor to the Yana Retreat, offering wisdom and teachings around the importance of ceremony and ritual in our lives. As a photojournalist and artist, she witnessed the power of shamanic lineages in the Venezuelan Amazon, India, Nepal and Canada. Naty is a Shamanic Practitioner, Ayurvedic Coach, Yoga, Breathwork, Meditation and Pachakuti Mesa Tradition Mystery School Sanctioned Teacher, Artist and Author of Your Mighty Inner Healer. Read more about Naty here.
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![An elderly woman wearing a wide-brimmed white hat with a black band, glasses, and turquoise earrings, smiling outdoors in a forested area.]()
Goldie Sherman
Yana Faculty
Goldie is our resident artist and master of laughter. With over 50+ years as a mixed media and pottery artist, dancer and educator with a trove of creative gifts, Goldie sees her artistic role as an agent of transformation, where she explores with others creative methods that are playful, powerful and accessible.
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![A woman with tattoos and colorful dress relaxing on a wooden chair outdoors, smiling.]()
Additional Mentors and Volunteers
Our Yana retreat would not be the same without the presence of guest mentors and volunteers. Mentors offer additional support for our participants and volunteers help keep everything running smoothly for our time together.
We are so thankful for this web of community support.
A Message From Our Retreat Directors
The Yana Retreat has been designed to bring awareness of self, others, and nature to the forefront of how we live our lives. We've combined inner and outer nourishment practices to support participants in developing inner resilience. This inner spark to thrive is needed to meet the challenges we currently face in the world and seize opportunities.
Yana provides vital skills to help stabilize the mind and explore the relationship between mind, body, and the outer world. We learn how to handle emotions and difficult thoughts with awareness, to direct and sustain attention, cultivate compassion, and listen deeply and communicate authentically with one another. Participants learn nature-awareness practices through camping in nature and by developing skills in observation, identification, and overcoming fears and discomfort.
We examine our relationship with food, not only by spending time in the vegetable garden – weeding, planting, building soil, harvesting food, etc. – but also by cooking and learning food preparation skills. An important element of food sovereignty is giving young adults resources to meet the challenges of climate change and address our relationship with the globalization of food, i.e., where does our food come from? What nourishes me?
An integral element of our curriculum is building community by fostering mentorship, especially intergenerationally, and embracing cross-cultural ceremonies and the arts.
We are thrilled to welcome you to the Yana Retreat! We cannot wait to meet you!
- Angie Di Iorio Blake, Co-Founder of Sarana Institute, and Maxine Iharosy, Yana Faculty
A special thank you to Naty Howard for the use of many of the photos on this page.