Spring Equinox Community Gathering – A Morning of Ritual and Renewal
Saturday, March 21st | 9:00am - 11:30am | True Nature Kiva
Celebrate SPRING with a guided nature art workshop and labyrinth walk, grounding and setting intentions in harmony with the turning season.
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At the bright turning between winter and summer, we gather in celebration—of light returning, of earth awakening, of the quiet joy of being alive together. Join us to honor the Spring Equinox.
This is a morning of earth, art, and shared ritual. Just like spring itself, the experience will be bright, gentle, spacious, and quietly alive.
We begin in circle, arriving fully. Together we step onto the land with open senses and a spirit of curiosity. Guided by a Morning Altars–inspired practice, we wander, notice, gather, and create—allowing the natural world to surprise us. There is something both playful and reverent in the experience, something that feels ancient and entirely fresh.
With simple materials offered by the season, we shape something impermanent and meaningful. No artistic skill is needed, only presence. What unfolds is personal, beautiful, and often unexpectedly moving. We hold it lightly. We celebrate it. And when the moment is right, we let it go.
From this place of connection and creativity, we enter the labyrinth together. Walking its winding path becomes a living threshold—an embodied honoring of what has carried us through the darker months and an opening to the warmth and possibility ahead.
As we emerge from the labyrinth, the morning deepens into a campus purification ritual. Guided by Eaden Shantay, we will gather in ceremony to cleanse and bless the land—offering gratitude for the ground that holds us and clearing the energetic field of the season behind us. Through simple collective ritual, we welcome the new cycle of growth with clarity, intention, and reverence.
Your presence is the gift.
And the magic belongs to the moment.
What we can promise is this: a morning that feels like a mini-retreat. A shared crossing. A celebration of season and spirit. An invitation to step into spring with clarity, gratitude, and a quiet kind of joy.
We would be honored to welcome you in this turning.
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Meet your guides:
Laura Kirk is enjoying the freedom of a new chapter as a strategic consultant and mentor. Throughout her career, she has focused on empowering people to be the best versions of themselves, charting their own path. Laura draws on her experience as DHM Design’s first woman President and Managing Partner, and Co-Founder of DHM’s Carbondale office where she was committed to nurturing personal growth. Laura was the lead landscape architect for the True Nature Peace Garden and is a trained labyrinth facilitator using the labyrinth as a tool to awaken our voices, as a place for exploration of challenging issues and questions. Laura has lived in Carbondale since 1998 with her husband and two grown sons.
Amy Fairbanks is an educator and artist of several mediums including pen and ink, fiber arts and nature art in Carbondale, Colorado. She is also a certified Morning Altars Teacher. Her vision is to weave together nature art, fiber arts, and earth-based ritual in Colorado mountain towns. With a background in education and arts, Amy has designed workshops, installations, and gatherings that invite people of all ages into mindful, build relationships with the land—from Morning Altars-inspired practices to collaborative outdoor art experiences. Living and working near Carbondale, Colorado, Amy is passionate about making creative, spiritual, and nature-based experiences accessible to everyday people, not just retreat- goers—offering down-to-earth spaces for slowing down, tending grief and transition, and remembering our connection to Place.
Eaden Shantay has a deep love for personal growth, family, community, the natural world, and creating sacred spaces. His past studies include a bachelor’s in environmental biology, a master’s in clinical psychology, 35 years of Native American Spirituality that include Sun Dancing at Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, and three decades studying Vedanta—the Vedic scriptures on self-knowledge.
He presently leads monthly Temazcal ceremonies at Loma Sagrada, week-long personal growth retreats with his wife and partner Deva, and hosts a bi-weekly podcast called Connection Is The Medicine.
Eaden and Deva are the founders of True Nature and Loma Sagrada, in Costa Rica. Loma Sagrada (Sacred Knoll) is a private retreat incorporating gardens using permaculture and biodynamic design principles. Eaden and Deva have won 5 architectural awards for True Nature, in Carbondale, CO, and Loma Sagrada, in Nosara, Costa Rica.
Both Eaden and Deva preside over the Connection Is The Medicine Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to inspiration, connection, and self-discovery, which oversees and supports the well-being of True Nature.
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PRICING - Community Offering | Donations Appreciated
Sliding Scale | Collective Care
Your presence matters, and we do not want cost to be a barrier to participation. This offering is part of our commitment to community care.
If you are able, we invite a suggested donation to support the ongoing work of the Connection is the Medicine Foundation and help sustain future programing.
This gathering is made possible through a web of generosity - our facilitators Laura, Eaden and Amy, our donors, the Connection is the Medicine Foundation, and each person who chooses to participate. Together, we create a model where care, presence, and access are shared.
Community Rate: $8 – Offered with the understanding that everyone deserves a place in the circle
Sustaining Rate: $18 – Helps hold this gathering within a subsidized ecosystem
Generosity Rate: $35 – Offered in the spirit of shared abundance, helping ensure these gatherings remain accessible to all
A Free RSVP option is available—please join us in whatever way feels most accessible to you.
If none of these options feel workable, please reach out to megan@connectionisthemedicine.comfor scholarship access.
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This programming is brought to you through the Connection is the Medicine Foundation, a non-profit foundation dedicated to co-creating opportunities for people to connect – with self, community, and the natural world – so they can discover meaning, purpose, and happiness in service of our shared consciousness. We envision a world where connection is embodied as a core value that nurtures wholeness within and between us all.
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At True Nature and Connection is the Medicine Foundation, we strive to create intentional, nourishing spaces and experiences for community connection and personal growth. To support a respectful and easeful experience for all, please view our Etiquette and Refund Policies, also listed below.
If you have any questions, you may contact Megan Miller, Director of Education and Programming at megan@connectionisthemedicine.com