Fall Equinox at Just Love Forest 2025! 🌲💚
You have the flexibility to choose which events you'd like to attend—all under a single registration!
While the weekend begins with meditation at 4:30 PM on Friday, you’ll join at the start time of the sessions you select (e.g., Saturday at 10:30 AM, Saturday at 4:30 PM, or Sunday at 10:30 AM). Simply pick the sessions you want when you register! Read more below.
Hello, Forest Family!
Welcome to a new year of love, joy, and community! We are thrilled to invite you and your loved ones—families, kids, and people of all ages to a weekend of connection, rejuvenation, and vibrant health in the heart of nature. Our monthly gatherings celebrate the essence of a modern tribe: coming together, sharing in adventures, service and song, and building connections that nourish the soul.
This weekend is packed with meaningful experiences for everyone with meditation, service, sound, and “shinrin-yoku” forest therapy. You can choose to attend one or all of the events, with an extended stay option (Mon–Thurs) available for members.
Have special needs or questions? We're here to help! Email Bala at bala@justloveforest.com, and we’ll ensure you’re all set for an unforgettable experience.
What’s Happening?
Friday: JOIN US FOR A DONATION-BASED Meditation Overnight AT THE JUST LOVE FOREST ASHRAM 🧡
4:30 PM Arrival
Just Love Forest is now being held as a Forest Ashram, rooted in the living traditions and lineage of the great Indian saint Neem Karoli Baba, and following the path of Bhakti Yoga, the yoga of love.
To honor this shift, for the remainder of 2025, our Friday Evening Meditation Retreats will be donation-based. Everyone is welcome. Simply offer what you can to help us offset food costs and maintain the space.
Each evening will include:
Guided Meditation – open to all paths, lineages, and traditions.
Pooja & Aarti Ceremony – an ancient Vedic practice honoring the elements and the four directions.
This sacred space is open to people of all faiths. If you feel called, you may bring a sacred object from your own tradition with a spiritualist, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, or otherwise to place on the altar and receive blessings.
If these practices are new to you, don’t be afraid. Come with curiosity, come to learn, come to share in community. Our invitation is simple: all hearts are welcome.
As part of this we will offer an Indian food dinner before our meditation. You're welcome to come for the evening and depart around 8pm or stay overnight in one of our canvas bell tents, all donation based.
Saturday morning we will wake up and offer the Pooja & Aarti Ceremony again at 7:00am, followed by a silent meditation from 7:30am - 8:30am, followed by breakfast.
Join us in the forest. Breathe. Sit. Pray. Share the sacred.
Email bala@justloveforest.com with questions. You’ll receive a list of things to bring for your overnight stay upon registering.
🌟 Saturday – A Day of Service & Song
Service Day: 10:30 AM Arrival
We’ll be sprucing up our labyrinth by adding stones and preparing our garden as we go into Fall and winter. Come lend a hand.
Song and Sound Circle: 4:30 PM Arrival
Start the day by giving back to the land through meaningful service—planting, building, and nurturing the forest we all love. In the evening, join us for a magical Song and Sound Circle. Let your voice blend with others as we share songs, chants, and rhythms that celebrate the joy of community and the beauty of the forest. Drums, flutes, guitars, and any instruments you bring are welcome, or simply join in with your voice and heart.
🌟 Sunday – Special nature therapy experience - Sound Healing & Despacho Offering to bhakti Mountain
10:30 AM Arrival
Spend the day immersed in nature’s healing embrace with Shinrin-yoku (forest therapy). Explore the forest with your senses wide open, discovering the health benefits of connecting deeply with the earth. Leave refreshed, renewed, and inspired.
Honoring the Change of Seasons: Sound Journey, Despacho, and Pilgrimage
As the seasons shift, so too does the rhythm of our lives. This transition calls us into deeper harmony with the cycles of nature and invites us to mark the turning of time with reverence and gratitude. At Just Love Forest, we will gather in community to honor this sacred passage with a ritual that unites sound, prayer, and pilgrimage.
We begin with a sound journey, allowing the vibrations of sound bowls and voice to open our hearts and quiet our minds. Through sound we cross the threshold into the unseen, weaving our intentions together with the living breath of the forest.
Following this, we will create a despacho, a traditional Andean offering bundle. A despacho is a sacred mandala of natural elements, herbs, flowers, seeds, and symbolic items. Each piece is placed with prayer, representing our gratitude, our intentions, and our reciprocity with the Earth. In the Andean tradition, the despacho is both a gift and a bridge: a way of aligning ourselves with the natural and spiritual worlds, and of offering thanks for the balance of life.
Once our despacho has been created, we will begin a pilgrimage to Bhakti Mountain, our most sacred place within the forest. Step by step, we will carry the despacho together up the mountain path, breathing with the land and attuning to its presence. At the summit, overlooking the expanse of creation, we will bury the despacho in the earth, returning our prayers to the mountain and to the spirits of the land.
This ritual is both a farewell and a welcome, releasing the season that has passed, honoring the gifts it has brought, and opening ourselves to the mystery and blessings of what is to come. In community, in gratitude, and in love, we walk together.
Stay A While Longer
Love what you’re feeling? Extend your stay! Members are welcome to remain through Thursday at noon to soak up the peaceful vibes and continue exploring the beauty of Just Love Forest.
[Inquire About Membership Here]
- Foster Love & Joy: Build deep, meaningful connections with a community that feels like family.
- Support Your Health: Enjoy the scientifically backed benefits of time spent in nature.
- Give Back: Contribute to our shared land through purposeful service.
- Create Memories: Share beautiful moments that will stay with you for a lifetime.
This isn’t just a weekend - it’s a new way to reconnect, a way to grow stronger together, and an opportunity to create lasting happiness in harmony with nature.
Pack your bags, bring your loved ones (and your instruments!), and get ready for a transformational experience.
Questions or Special Needs?
We’re here for you! Contact Bala at bala@justloveforest.com for any questions or accommodations.