Mountains

RisingSoul Retreat

Yoga and earth-minded community in the Balkans

setting

Mountains

where

Belitsa, Tryavna, Bulgaria

best season

May to September

ideal for

Eco-Community Stay

( the feeling of it )

Not a retreat you attend. A community you join for a week, wood-gathering included.

( the story )

A plant-based eco-community in the Bulgarian Balkan Mountains where guests live the daily rhythm rather than book a schedule.

RisingSoul describes itself as not your typical yoga retreat, and means it — this is a living, breathing eco-community in a remote forest valley at Belitsa, in Bulgaria's Gabrovo province. Guests come to live in it rather than be served by it: practice happens in the Yoga Barn, everything social gravitates to the Chai House, and the days involve gathering wood, lighting the fire and eating together outdoors. The food is entirely plant-based. Around the core of yoga and meditation there are cacao ceremonies, forest walks, workshops and treatments. The philosophy is less-is-more, and the Balkan mountains do most of the rest.

( field notes, dawn to night )

A day here

morning

The Yoga Barn, doors open, mountain air coming straight through the building.

midday

Plant-based food eaten outdoors at a long table with whoever else is here.

afternoon

Forest walks, cacao ceremony, a workshop, or the wood that needs gathering.

night

The fire you built, the Chai House, and a Balkan sky doing all the work.

( worth underlining )

What sets it apart

A living eco-community in the Balkan Mountains, not a hotel that runs yoga weeks

The Yoga Barn as the practice space, and the Chai House as the social one

Guests join the daily rhythm — gathering wood, lighting fires, sharing meals

Entirely plant-based cooking

Cacao ceremonies, forest walks and workshops through the season

Deep rural Bulgaria, at Belitsa in Gabrovo province

What you can do

Yoga & Meditation

Cacao Ceremony

Massage & Treatments

Forest Walks

Workshops

Community Living

On the property

The Yoga Barn

The Chai House

Outdoor Dining

Plant-Based Kitchen

Fire Circle

Mountain Forest Setting

( plan your stay )

You remember that being useful and being rested are not opposites.

Come and live here a while.

best time to visit — May to September — Balkan summers are warm and green, with dining outdoors and long mountain evenings.

book via hawa club →

( keep wandering )

More high in the mountains

book via hawa club →