Retreats
Sing | Nourish | Uplift | Connect
4th Annual Sisters in Harmony Summer Retreat
&
Live Song Leader Training
A women’s singing retreat at the stunning Green Mountain Retreat Center in the Santa Cruz Mountains
- Please join us for a nourishing weekend of singing in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Song leaders will be announced in January 2025
- Immerse yourself in sacred sisterhood, song, qi gong, meditation, ritual, hiking trails, and a swimming pool. We’ll be singing together in one big group the entire weekend! Fill your cup with songs that open your heart and uplift your spirit!
Food – Organic, locally sourced, gluten-free meals
Lodging – Dorm rooms and cottages
Private beds in shared rooms and cottages are available. Limited single rooms are also available. All accommodations include shared bathrooms.
No camping in tents, RVs, or vans is allowed on site.
Directions to the retreat center will be emailed to registrants a week prior to the event.
We will create a private Facebook page for registered participants only to arrange ride shares and to connect and make roommate choices prior to the retreat.
It’s easy to take shuttles and Ubers from the airport.
Add-on LIVE SONG LEADER TRAINING
Sunday June 29th — Tuesday July 1st
In 2024 I added two additional days at the end of the retreat for those interested in learning to be song leaders and I’m so excited to offer this again in 2025!
- Gain the tools you need to lead your community in heart-opening songs
- Practice leading songs with your sisters in harmony
- Fill your pockets with songs that inspire, uplift and connect us deeply to the human experience
Our 2025 Facilitators will be announced in January 2025
Our 2024 facilitators were:
Alexandra “ahlay” Blakely
Ahlay is an Ashkenazi, Scandinavian singer-songwriter, grief tender, community organizer, and ceramicist walking the path of ancestral healing and the reclaiming of lost cultural memories. Her community singing album, Spells from the Unknown encapsulates songs for the community to transform, ask questions, and seek to lead lives that might make us ancestors worth honoring. Her upcoming 2024 community singing album,WAILS: Songs for Grief was recorded in July 2023 with a choir of 200 voices. The album is completely dedicated to grief, inspired by the Whales and Frances Weller’s “the five gates of grief.”
Amanda West
Amanda is an award-winning singer, songwriter, song-circle leader, music teacher and mother. She is co-founder of Womb Song, U.S., an organization that supports women into motherhood through music. She understands music to be a part of our human birthright, playing an essential role in our experience of being alive, and has found her life-path and greatest joy through sharing music with others.
Becky Reardon
Becky Reardon’s voice is familiar to the millions of people who heard her sing on the Charlie Brown TV specials (Charles Schultz called her his favorite singer!). She performed in folk venues in the San Francisco Bay Area for many years before moving to New Mexico and making the shift to writing, performing, and teaching her own compositions. Now her songs and rounds are widely sung by community choruses, song circles, university choirs, and people out for a walk in the beautiful world. Becky is currently writing a musical about a women’s singing circle.
Debbie Nargi-Brown
For over 3 decades, Debbie Nargi-Brown has been leading dancing and singing in Santa Cruz and beyond; teaching African-inspired dance classes, leading Community Sings as well as facilitating retreats and workshops. She writes songs for the heart, for healing, for transformation, for love, for grief and all those things that connects us as human beings. Bringing people together in dance and song is one of her greatest sources of joy!
Heather Houston
Born with a voice full of heart and soul, Central Coast Californian Heather Houston is passionate about uplifting spirits, freeing voices, and building strong, loving communities through the power of singing. Heather is a community choir directing virtuoso and vocal coach extraordinaire with over 20-years experience writing and producing music, leading song circles, and offering life transforming events at venues like Esalen and 1440 Multiversity. In these trying times, Heather continues to spread her magic through her multiple online offerings: The Art of Mindful Singing, Singing as Sanctuary, S.H.E. Sings, Sisters in Harmony Song and Chant Leader Training, and her Sisters in Harmony Global drop-in series with guest artists and song leaders. You can find her music on all of the streaming platforms.
Kaitie Ty Warren
Kaitie Ty Warren (she/they) is a Bay Area-based songleader, teacher, writer and performer. Passionate about creating collective experiences through music, she teaches by call and response, and emphasizes playfulness as a form of resistance. In 2015 she founded Living Room Choir, which survived the move to Zoom through the pandemic and recently re-opened as Living Room Choir ANEW, co-led by Sara Stutz. Kaitie is a member of the Ubuntu Choirs Network, which believes it’s everybody’s birthright to sing. KaitieTyWarren.com; TheLivingRoomChoir.com
Melanie DeMore
Singer-songwriter Melanie DeMore has a remarkable voice, weaving the fibers of African American folk music with soulful ballads, spirituals, and her own original music. DeMore beautifully brings her audience together through her music and commentary. She has toured extensively, singing at festivals, universities, coffee houses, and concert halls. Her recordings, “Share My Song” and “Come Follow Me,” are both heartfelt collections of her music.
Beth Freewoman (Chi Gong)
(she/her/hers) is the owner of The Open Hearth–Tools for Self-Healing
(www.IAmTheOpenHearth.com). With her passion for holistic health and her confidence in the
body’s self-healing capacity, she shares the practice of Qigong with enthusiasm and the intention
to empower. Not only is she certified as a Holden Qi Gong teacher, (by Lee Holden), she is an
advanced student of Dr. Joe Dispenza, integrating the healing power of meditation and coherence
into her own health and well-being practices. She currently lives in Santa Cruz, CA.
What to Bring:
- Ear plugs (If you’re a sensitive sleeper)
- Snacks (Especially for Sunday. We need to be off campus by noon, so no lunch will be provided that day, unless you’re also enrolled in the song leader training)
- Water bottle
- Travel mug
- Flashlight / headlamp
- Comfortable layers of clothing that you can move and breathe in
- Good walking shoes
- Hiking shoes if you’d like to hike on the property
- Shower / pool shoes
- Bathing suit
- Towel for pool (shower towels are provided)
- Sunglasses
- Sun hat
- Warm hat
- Sunscreen
- Toiletries
- Journal
- An item for our collective altar — something that you want to charge up with the powerful energy of our time together and take home with you as a reminder.