The Healing While Black Retreat 2026
JuNE 20 - 27, 2026 - NOSARA, COSTA RICA
PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS
Our Stories. Our Rhythms. Our Flow.
RHYTHM & FLOW:
The Healing Power of Story, Sound, & Movement
Dr. Shelly Harrell
Meditation & Journaling
Featuring Leslie Salmon Jones & Jeff Jones (Afro Flow Yoga)
Healing Movement, Embodied Storytelling, & Live Music
Dominique Cowling
Restorative Yoga
Tyler Cymone
Sound Healing
Preliminary PROGRAM SCHEDULE
& ACTIVITIES
HEALING WHILE BLACK
Rhythm & Flow:
The Healing Power of Story, Sound, & Movement
Our goal is to provide a healing space and offer experiences
for you to find and experience your rhythm and your flow.
Our program is designed with the intention of providing opportunities to reclaim, liberate, and celebrate our personal and collective stories through music, movement, meditation, reflection and revelation, writing/journaling, and connecting with each other in conversation and care.
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"This is my story. This is my song."
Integrated throughout the retreat will be opportunities to utilize journaling (reflective, expressive, and/or creative writing) to remember, reconnect, and reimagine. This could be your insights and revelations during the retreat, glimpses and snippets of your lived experience, your visions and dreams, notes for a memoir or autobiography, poetry, the story of your HWB retreat experience, ancestral or familial stories, etc.
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Each day will include time with music/sound, movement, and story. There will be communal, relational, and personal healing time throughout the retreat. There will be plenty of space for you to choose what is most healing, restorative, or revitalizing for you.
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ALL-COMMUNITY ACTIVITIES
Healing Sessions with Leslie & Jeff
"This is My Story, This is My Song" with Dr. Shelly
Yoga with Dominique Cowling
Sound Healing with Tyler Cymone
Joy-Centered Activities (Game Night, Closing Party)
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"CONNECTION & CARE" TIME
Opportunities to engage in activities and conversation in small "Connection & Care" groups. Intentional space to connect meaningfully with other retreatants, to share your story and bear witness to the stories of others.
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PERSONAL HEALING TIME
Your choice of whatever is healing for YOU: pool, massages, Blue Spirit's Longevity Center, nap, deep rest, beach, horseback riding, journaling, reading, listening to music, walking, exploration, communing with nature, conversation, etc.
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PRELIMINARY PROGRAM SCHEDULE & HIGHLIGHTS
Saturday, June 20th: Arrival & Welcome
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Sunday, June 21st: Orientation and Introductions + Evening Opening Ceremony
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Monday, June 22nd: Morning Healing Session with Leslie & Jeff + Game Night
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Tuesday, June 23rd: Island Explorations or On-Site HWB Activities + Evening Candlelight "Soulful Rest" Yoga with Dominique Cowling
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Wednesday, June 24th: "Connection & Care" with Dr. Shelly + Evening Healing Session with Leslie & Jeff
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Thursday, June 25th: DAY OF QUIETUDE (including Sound Healing with Tyler Cymone) + Evening HWB "Connection & Care" Time
​Friday, June 26th: Afternoon Healing Session with Leslie & Jeff + Evening Closing Ceremony & Party
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Saturday, June 27th: Departure
PRELIMINARY DAILY SCHEDULE
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7:30-9:15am - Breakfast (before or after yoga)
8:00-8:45am - Morning Yoga with Dominique (most days)
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​9:30-12:00 - HEALING TIME (community, group, and personal healing options vary daily)
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12:00 -1:30pm - Lunch
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1:30-5:30pm - HEALING TIME (community, group, and personal healing options vary daily)
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6:00-7:30pm - Dinner
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7:30-10:00pm - HEALING TIME (community, group, and personal healing options vary daily)
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RETREAT & REGISTRATION DETAILS
Interested? SIGN-UP FOR UPDATES
COMMUNITY
We are each other’s medicine. We do not heal in isolation but in relationship and in community. Our retreat will provide opportunities to ground in the truth of Ubuntu (“I am because we are”). We invite you to join with us to cultivate a sense of belonging, connection, and care through our shared and diverse experiences as Black people. We know that magic happens when we gather-- our power, our brilliance, our beauty, and our love amplified in community.
CULTURE
Culture heals. We are intentional in offering a retreat experience where our Blackness is centered, affirmed, and celebrated! We will immerse ourselves in the beauty and vibrance of our diverse African diasporic cultural expressions. As we celebrate our shared cultural roots, we know that there is not one way to be Black, and it is that multiplicity that is part of what makes us amazing. We invite you to embrace and express the beautiful and unique ways that culture shows up as YOU.
MUSIC & SOUND
For people of African descent, music, sound, and voice are inseparable from our healing. Our music can uplift us in joy and bring us to our knees in tears. Our songs. Our drums. Our rhythms. Our storytelling. They are in our cultural and ancestral memory. The musical magic of Jeff Jones will bring us deeply into the healing power of music. Sound and music carry energy that connect us powerfully across time and place. Music connects us to each other, to who and what has come before us, and to the deepest parts of ourselves. Our music is in our blood, our bones, our souls. We are fortunate to be able to experience the gift of sound bowls and sound healing with Tyler Cymone.
MOVEMENT & YOGA
Embodied practices are healing resources that allow opportunities to experience how culture lives in our bodies and our movements. Leslie Salmon Jones will lead us into the healing fusion of African culture, movement, and yoga. Dominique Cowling will offer us beautiful practices of restorative yoga and "soulful rest" to bring more intentional support and care to our hearts and bodies. It is also important to remember that there is movement in stillness, Stillness allows us to more deeply experience what is moving within us and through us.
MEDITATION
Meditation and mindfulness are critical wellness resources so that we don't get lost from ourselves, from each other, from truth. They invite a sacred pause, the practice of presence, dropping down into deeper awareness, and/or expansion into transcendent consciousness. We will have one "Day of Quietude", observing silence throughout that day to clear your mind and hear the whisperings of your soul. This day includes mindful eating and silence during meals. Dr. Shelly will guide us in meditation practices, as well as provide invitations to engage in reflective and meditative journaling throughout the retreat.
NUTRITION
Honoring the sacredness of our body means consciousness of what we consume. What we put into our bodies impacts our mental, emotional, and physical functioning. Delicious "gourmet vegetarian" meals with a range of choices are served each day at Blue Spirit. Nourishing beverages include their delicious cinnamon water and a variety of juices. Blue Spirit also offers a special Detox-Cleanse program that you can do while on the HWB Retreat. There is a powerful healing connection between nourishing our bodies, our minds, and our spirits.
