Do you find yourself wanting to have the deeper conversations without words? Do you long to be gathered among kindred spirits for soul care that you feel deep in your bones? Do you need that pause from the endless needs of the world?

We are creating and curating a weekend retreat for soul care that aims to give you the experience of sustaining yourself in the midst of working for a better world. So many of us are out there in the world trying to make life better in these difficult times, and we need to make sure we tend to ourselves and our healing. Oppression is trauma, and those of us who are experiencing and witnessing oppression are impacted by trauma. We need a home to retreat from the hurt, spend time with ourselves on sacred ground, be surrounded by others who can support and care for us, and learn tools to enable us to heal from the inside out.

This retreat won’t fix it all for you, but will provide space, tools, conversations, and community to help you keep going in whatever way you need to.  

Our Soul Care Retreat aims to be a family reunion for kin who have never met.  We are anam cara for one another. We are those who know what it means to hold the world’s deep hunger for inclusivity. We resist the temptations of being polite when we are called to shake the walls.  Our pillows are lined with tears of frustration and tears of rejoicing. And we need each other, gathered together with delicious, nourishing food. We need each other as we create rhythms and rituals of receiving and releasing.  We need the space to dance within and around our own fires.

Who We Are

Jayme Reaves, Suzanne L. Vinson, and Ana Karim are “anam cara” (soul friends) for one another and have been since Spring 2001. They know how to share to the deeper truths hidden within, and they experience true delight in the company of life — in all life’s challenges and generosities. More than all of that, they love one another as kindred, claiming one another as chosen family.

Suzanne, Jayme, and Ana have spent countless hours gathering with others to hold the harder questions, to create safe space for healing experiences, to be with one another in silence and in meaningful conversation. We each bring our own forms of diversity and particularity to this weekend, and we welcome you to do the same.

Ana, Suzanne, and Jayme’s vision for a Soul Care Retreat centers on gathering resistors, caregivers, and folks who seek to make this world a brighter home for each other, and in conversation soon welcomed soul friend Holly Roach Knight to expand and strengthen the experience for all.  

Holly is a collaborator at Transform Network and works at the intersections of faith and justice movements for transformational church and social change. Holly has a passion for hosting and organizing transformational spaces for exploring how to transform ourselves, our communities, and the world.